SIMIC

The waterway now accepts vessels up to 370.33 metres in length and announced a 15.24-metre (50-foot) draft ahead of the expansion's fifth anniversary

"This change was made possible by our team's experience operating the Neopanamax Locks safely and reliably over the past five years," said Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vasquez Morales.

The extended LOA will provide shipping lines with greater flexibility in making decisions for the deployment and construction of vessels with greater capacity that can transit through the Panama Canal.

This announcement comes after a series of trial transits to confirm the safety of operations. They included the 2019 transit of Evergreen's 369-metre-long (1,210 feet) Triton, which became the largest vessel in dimension and container cargo capacity to transit the Panama Canal since the inauguration of the Neopanamax Locks in June 2016.

Since then, other ships with the same dimensions and container cargo capacity have also transited the waterway, including the Talos and Theseus, among others.