Soaring Panama Canal Fees Drive a Nascent LPG Shuttle Trade

(Bloomberg) — Exporters including Chevron Corp. are turning to ship-to-ship transfers to send liquefied petroleum gas from the US to Asia, an apparent change in strategy that comes as users of the Panama Canal grapple with congestion and record transit fees.

The busy Gulf Coast-to-Asia LPG trade typically relies on wider Neopanamax vessels, but these ships are facing increasingly punitive costs to get through the canal. The rates for narrower Panamax tankers, which go through a separate set of locks, haven’t risen as much, traders said.

Two Neopanamax tankers chartered by Chevron, the Fritzi N and the