Economics of
Water Report
Expanding Global Commerce,
Building Water Infrastructure
The Panama Canal – which handles 5 percent of the worldwide shipping trade –
recently completed a massive $5.2 billion expansion project that doubles its capacity
In This Issue
and meets global commerce needs into the next century. The canal’s Third Set of
• Sustainable infrastructure designs
Locks opened in June 2016, welcoming bigger ships that can carry three times as
• Insights for future waterway and
many cargo containers through this historic short-cut between the Atlantic and Pacific
large-scale engineering projects
oceans. MWH Global, now part of Stantec, led the technical design for the Third Set
of Locks – the largest portion of the canal’s expansion project. MWH engineers and
experts worldwide collaborated to create sustainable water infrastructure designs – many never before achieved on a project of this scope
or scale. In this Economics of Water report, MWH leaders discuss the Panama Canal’s technical design features and performance, as well as
what the expansion means for other global ports and waterways.
Panama Canal Expansion Delivers Super-Sized Sustainable Designs
BY NICK PANSIC, NAVIGATION PRACTICE LEADER AND VICE PRESIDENT
For a century, the Panama Canal has been the gateway for efficiently
transporting goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But
today’s larger container ships were too wide for the existing Panama
Canal locks, forcing them to find alternative routes. That’s why the
Panama Canal Authority (ACP) decided to create a new, larger set
of locks, which are now open for business and working as designed.
For the Third Set of Locks expansion project, MWH, now part of
Stantec, acted as the lead member of the CICP design joint venture.
CICP served as the lead designer for the project under the designbuild contract of the global construction consortium Grupo Unidos
Por el Canal (GUPC). In this superlative-filled project, here some of the most significant design features that combined engineering,
sustainability and technology best practices:
• Water-saving basins. Each lock has huge water basins that are saving and
re-using 60 percent of the fresh water that lifts and moves ships through the
lock system. It’s a first for a project of this size. The water-saving basins are
especially critical for a country like Panama that needs to conserve fresh water
resources used to meet increasing demands from municipal, industrial, and
agricultural sectors.
• Lock gates. The existing canal uses gates that open like swinging doors across
half the lock. The expanded canal has some of the largest lock gates in the
world – a total of 16 rolling gates (eight in each lock facility standing 100 feet
tall) that move across the entire lock lane, making them more efficient and
ensuring the canal is always open for business, even during regular maintenance. Once fully operational, it is anticipated (subject to
proper conditions) that up to 20 ship transits per day will transit the new locks.
• Seismic design. During the project planning, it was discovered that the canal was on an active fault line. MWH engineers developed
a seismic design for the new locks that is among the most stringent in the world. It can withstand a roughly similar magnitude to the
level of earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.
Want to see some of these massive features and feats for yourself?
Check out the photos, articles and videos we’ve compiled that help showcase the larger-than-life Panama Canal expansion project and
learnings that can apply to other waterway and water infrastructure projects: www.mwhglobal.com/panamacanal
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Insights For Future Waterway Infrastructure Projects
Engineers from MWH Global, now part of Stantec, spent years designing and working on
the Panama Canal expansion. They share their insights and lessons learned – and the ripple
effects for global commerce and other internal waterways and major coastal cities.
mike newbery
chris ottsen
nick pansic
What design feature of the expanded canal most stands out to you and why?
Chris Ottsen (Geotechnical Lead for the project and Vice President): “The water-saving basins are based on a very simple hydraulic
principle that water flows downhill. But this is applied in a very unique and creative way. The end result is a system that lets the lock chambers
fill and empty with some 30 million gallons of water in only 17 minutes when using the water-saving basins.”
Mike Newbery (Executive Director for the project and Vice President): “The locks’ filling and emptying system is the heart and soul of
the project. The locks are massive hydraulic structures, designed to safely transit ships by raising and lowering them between the ocean and
Lake Gatun levels. Our design focused on achieving or improving on the hydraulic design requirements for safety (smooth water), speed (quick
times) and efficiency (saving water). We used multiple computer models to review hundreds of designs to develop the basic filling and emptying
system arrangement. We then model-tested the basic design and improved it further. Finally we tested and calibrated the prototype, and it has
achieved or bettered all of its performance requirements for both the Atlantic and Pacific lock complexes, which are the largest in the world.”
What was your biggest engineering-related lesson learned from working on the project?
Newbery: “The project’s design-build delivery brings many potential advantages such as schedule compression and cost savings compared to
traditional design, bid and build projects. However, it requires very close coordination between the designer and the design-build contractor. A
key lesson learned is the importance of assembling and maintaining the right design delivery team, defining the project delivery system through
the quality management system, and then continually implementing, communicating and auditing the process. This is essential to be able to
deal with changes. Our team, design delivery system and quality management system performed very well across the 400 staff in seven design
centers on four continents, spanning 12 time zones.”
What technical design solution from the Panama Canal expansion can greatly benefit other similar port or waterway projects?
Nick Pansic (Navigation Practice Leader and Vice President): “It has raised the bar in almost every respect. The performance standards
of the Third Set of Locks are now becoming the new engineering standard for other projects around the world, including the Port of Antwerp in
Belgium. Other authorities can learn from and follow the canal’s design and specifications.”
Ottsen: “One of the biggest benefits and advancements was using the Building Information Modeling (BIM) process on a large civil works
project. The process can be used for developing and implementing design-build solutions, including ports and waterways. For example, we
used BIM for design and preparation of construction drawings and quantities throughout the project, but where it really came to the fore was
during the integration of the complex mechanical, electrical, controls, roads, drainage and lighting systems that run the more than 400-acre
footprint of each lock complex. This was a challenging task that was made straightforward using BIM for design. In addition, some of the tools,
including finite element modeling, used for the expansion project’s seismic designs were truly state-of-the art and will contribute to industry
advancements.”
Based on the canal expansion, what benefits do you anticipate for local, regional and global economies?
Pansic: “Globally, the Panama Canal expansion is driving investments in other port and waterway facilities in every continent, as well as
equipment and land-side facility upgrades. It’s like a huge chess game with lots of moving pieces and global logistics. Regionally, for the U.S.
and Canada, the expansion allows for more exports of agricultural and petrochemical products, and it’s a more efficient way to import goods.
For South America, it opens up agricultural exports from Brazil and mineral exports from Columbia, just to name a few. Locally, the Panama
Canal is a transparent economic driver for that country, boosting the treasury by $1 billion annually.”
Learn more about services that keep the world’s ports, waterways and coastal areas at the center of the global economy:
http://www.mwhglobal.com/markets/ports-waterways-and-coastal/
Connect with MWH:
Connect with Stantec:
For more information visit:
For media inquiries:
MWH Global
Geoff Renstrom
Stantec
(303) 951-2564
[email protected]
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