SK Gas Pays Record $5.3m for a Single Panama Canal Transit Slot
Second Korean record in a month, both to move an LPG carrier to the Houston Ship Channel
For the second time in a month, a South Korean shipowner has set a record for the highest transit fee paid for a Panama Canal booking slot. Both records were set to move an LPG carrier to a loading terminal on the Houston Ship Channel.
SK Gas, the LPG trading arm of SK Group, has paid $5.3m for the right to move one ship through the locks on 1 September. Without the payment the vessel would still transit, but would wait up to 11 days given current delays.
The ship in question, G. Spirit, is on the eastbound leg of its ordinary rotation. Since at least 2025 it has loaded LPG at the Houston Enterprise dock and carried it to customers in East Asia, calling in China, South Korea and Japan, transiting the canal on almost every voyage in each direction. It is currently at anchor off Panama City awaiting its usual northbound passage, this time at extraordinary cost.
Earlier this month SK Shipping, a former sister company now owned by private equity firm Hahn & Co, paid a record $4.6m for a canal slot to move the nearly identical gas carrier G. Arete to the same Houston terminal. Like G. Spirit, G. Arete runs a long-term rotation between the Enterprise terminal and East Asia.
Two constraints are driving the bidding. The first is the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, which has cut the volume of energy shipments reaching Asia from the Arabian Gulf and sent LPG prices sharply higher. In South Korea the government has suspended LPG import tariffs and leaned on wholesalers to hold consumer prices down, producing loss-making domestic sales. An industry executive said gas traders are making up those losses through more profitable ventures on the global market, which raises the value of a prompt Houston loading.
The second is the drought at the canal itself, which has reduced the maximum allowable draught and, from 3 September, the maximum daily number of transits. Elevated traffic against reduced capacity has pushed auction bidding up and prompted canal management to introduce measures aimed at keeping the process fair.
