Panama City, Panama, February 14, 2016 – 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 #3 of the Cocolí locks.
GUPC technical personnel, the designers and Panama Canal Authority (ACP) 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 #3 last August.
Later, the testing was inspected by a team of independent experts, professors and structural engineers from the Technological University of Panama (UTP), all of whom expressed satisfaction with the final results.
Following the completion of this 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.
About the Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is run by an autonomous agency of the Government of Panama in charge of managing, operating and maintaining the Panama Canal. The operation of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is based on its organic law and the regulations approved by its Board of Directors. For more information, please refer to the ACP’s website: http://www.pancanal.com or follow us on Twitter @thepanamacanal.
