Cargo ships wait to transit the Panama Canal in Panama City.
A tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas has paid $5.3 million (R84.8 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.
