The Panama Canal has temporarily relaxed parts of its booking system in an effort to make scarce transit capacity more flexible, as deteriorating water conditions continue to squeeze one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints, the shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific that normally handles roughly 5% of global maritime trade.

Under the changes, which take effect for booking dates beginning September 13, neopanamax customers will be permitted to secure more than one reservation for the same date and to obtain slots on consecutive days. The move temporarily removes restrictions introduced earlier this year.

The canal will offer 63 neopanamax reservation slots each week, including allocations made through its Long-Term Slot Allocation and NetZero programmes. The larger neopanamax locks, opened in 2016, are the ones used by containerships, LNG carriers and other big vessels that account for the majority of the canal's toll revenue.

Minimum allocations are also being introduced across key shipping sectors. Full containerships will receive at least five slots per booking date, while LPG and LNG carriers will each receive at least three. Vehicle carriers, bulkers and other vessel categories will be guaranteed at least three slots per week. Any unused capacity can then be redistributed between sectors.

The changes come as Panama attempts to wring maximum efficiency from available capacity while conserving water amid a strengthening El Niño. The canal is gravity-fed from Gatun Lake, and each transit consumes millions of gallons of freshwater, which is why dry conditions translate directly into fewer, more lightly laden transits rather than just slower ones.

As Splash reported earlier this month, daily booking capacity will fall from 34 vessels to 32 from mid-September, while authorities have also been trimming allowable neopanamax drafts as Gatun Lake levels decline.

The tightening has driven the value of guaranteed passage sharply higher. South Korea's SK Gas paid a record $5.3m last week to secure a September 1 transit for the LPG carrier G. Spirit, smashing a $4.6m record set only weeks earlier. Vessels arriving without reservations have recently faced waits approaching 11 days.

The canal endured severe disruption during the 2023-24 drought, when reduced drafts and daily transit limits forced ships onto longer alternative routes. This time, Panama is intervening earlier, using pricing, reservations, draft restrictions and more flexible slot allocation to stretch its available water and capacity before conditions deteriorate further. How effectively the earlier intervention manages the balance between auction-driven revenue and throughput in the coming months will be closely watched by carriers already weighing routeing and schedule decisions around the waterway.