June 26 marked the end of almost nine years of construction and expansion at the Panama Canal, making this almost decadelong project the largest in the passage’s history.

On the morning of June 26, a ship from China—the Cosco Shipping Panama—took the maiden voyage, making use of channels that were widened by
70 feet and deepened by 18 feet.

Prior to the expansion, boats were limited to carrying only 5,000 containers through the canal. Following the nine-year project’s completion, vessels can carry 13,000-14,000 containers.

The project cost $5.25 billion and got underway in September 2007 after Panamanian citizens voted in favor of the project to keep up with demand for expanded shipping capabilities.

Officials with the Panama Canal report 170 vessels have already made reservations to pass through and the expansion could add up to 15 boat crossings daily.

Houston could also feel the effects of the canal’s expanded shipping capacity through both the ports of Houston and Freeport, experts said. In a June 23 presentation to the Cy-Fair ISD board of trustees, Pat Guseman, president of Population and Survey Analysts, estimated the expansion would accelerate Port of Houston traffic by roughly 15 percent.

“The [Hwy.] 290 improvements should help improve ground transportation that the Panama Canal will bring to Cy-Fair via both the Houston and Freeport ports,” the PASA report states. “In sum, the capital improvements on [Hwy.] 290 will act to accelerate the canal’s increased commercial impact on CFISD.”

Guseman said that because Cy-Fair has such a manufacturing-dependent workforce, the expansion is promising.

“Since Cy-Fair seems unusually dependent on manufacturing, [the expansion] is going to be an alternative to help maintain those jobs that were put at risk with the oil and gas slump,” she said.