The Bridge of the Americas at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, located next to the port of Balboa in Panama City

Panama City (AFP) - A tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas has paid $5.3 million for priority passage through the Panama Canal ahead of El Nino-related restrictions, the waterway’s deputy administrator, Ilya Espino de Marotta, told AFP on Thursday.

South Korean company SK Gas paid the record sum for the G. Spirit to transit the shipping lane on September 1, two days before canal authorities reduce the number of transits due to the El Nino weather phenomenon, Bloomberg reported.

Panama on Tuesday became the latest Central American country to declare an emergency over El Nino, which has caused dwindling water levels in the canal due to a severe drought across the region.

El Nino is a weather pattern that raises surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, generating global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions.

It is also nudging up global temperatures in a year predicted to be the hottest on record.

Ships transiting the Panama Canal book their passage well in advance, and ships without bookings wait an average of five days to get through, but there is an auction where last-minute transits can be purchased.

The Panama Canal Authority said in a statement that the average auction price between October 2025 and February 2026 was around $55,000.

But in April, a vessel carrying liquefied natural gas paid $4 million to skip the line and avoid a wait to pass through the canal as the war in the Middle East boosted demand to move vital cargo through the waterway.

The shipping route, which handles five percent of global maritime trade, will cut the number of daily transmits from 36 to 34 from September 3, and to 32 later in the month.