A canal across Nicaragua would shave 500 miles off the shipping route between New York and Los Angeles.
The idea of an interoceanic waterway through Nicaragua is far older than the existing, 100-year-old Panama Canal. For centuries, Spanish conquistadors, modern-day diplomats and others have floated proposals to build a route through Nicaragua—even early U.S. proponents of a Central American canal project originally favored Nicaragua over Panama.
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The transit time to ship goods across Nicaragua would be longer than that of Panama, but the overall voyage would provide savings. That’s because the route would shave more than 500 miles off a trip from New York City to Los Angeles, a fact not lost on global shippers—including Maersk Line, one of the world’s biggest—that are supporting a Chinese company’s $50-billion proposal to build the canal.
“建立一个尼加拉瓜运河似乎充分sense,” Keith Svendsen, vice president of the Danish transportation company told industry website ShippingWatch.com earlier this year. What’s more, Panama cannot yet handle the world’s largest ocean vessels, even with its current third-lane expansion, he noted. Russia President Vladimir Putin has also publicly expressed support of the route.
Backed by Hong Kong-based developer HKND Group, proponents envision digging and dredging a 173-mile route that stretches from the Pacific side, at Brito, to the Caribbean Sea. The route would extend more than three times longer than the Panama Canal, but much of it would cover inland waterways, such as Lake Nicaragua, which would require dredging to accommodate such large vessels as container ships and oil tankers.
去年被授予了开发人员的开发商，以建造和运营运河长达100年，并在没有北京政府资金的情况下保证了该项目的支持。该公司的董事长中国企业家Wang Jing还承诺要考虑经济而非地缘政治或军事利益的运河项目。
“I know you don’t believe me,” Wang told Reuters this past May. “You believe there are people from the Chinese government in the background providing support. Why, in the end, is only Wang Jing out front?”
Project partners currently include feasibility consultant China Railway Construction Corp. and lead designer China Railway Siyuan Survey and Design Group. Other early-phase project participants include McKinsey & Co. and Environmental Resources Management Ltd.
根据HKND的说法，该项目将需要挖掘约50亿立方码的地球和岩石，预计将于12月开始并在五年内完成。中国制造商XCMG已被保留为专门为这项工作提供设备，而项目官员一直在与澳大利亚矿业公司进行咨询，以绘制出咀嚼该国复杂地形的方法。
Construction and engineering experts agree that the risks are huge for a project whose cost estimate exceeds Nicaragua’s own gross domestic product by more than a factor of four.
“Like any megaproject, they exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the costs,” says Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor at Hofstra University who studies global transportation issues. “It might break ground, but at some point in time I think it is going to financially collapse.” This month, people in Nicaragua’s have been protesting the project, fearing loss of land, environmental disaster and other concerns.
