Testing of Panama Canal Lock Repair Complete

The Panama Canal has announced that Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), the consortium responsible for the design and construction of the Third Set of Locks Project, has successfully completed testing of the reinforcements in sill Number 3 of the Cocolí locks.  

GUPC technical personnel, the designers and Panama Canal Authority specialists monitored the testing process which consisted of gradually raising the water behind the lock gate to the level in which the seepage was first detected in sill Number 3 last August.

Later, the testing was inspected by a team of independent experts, professors and structural engineers from the Technological University of Panama, all of whom expressed satisfaction with the final results.

In September last year, the Panama Canal Authority announced that the leak occurred in the concrete sill between the lower and middle chamber of the Canal’s expanded Pacific Locks as a result of insufficient steel reinforcing.

Following the completion of the reinforcing work, GUPC will proceed to test the electromechanical components necessary for the expanded canal to operate.

Less than four percent remains to complete the overall project which will be inaugurated later this year.