Work on a third set of locks for the Panama Canal, as part of a canal expansion project, is 70 percent complete on the Pacific side, someone close to the project said Friday.
Gustavo Rivas, representative of the Pacific-side project, took reporters on a tour of the site organized by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), the agency that manages the waterway.
Some 88 percent of the concrete, or 2.1 million cubic metric tons, has been laid, the excavation work is practically finished, and a little more than 50 percent of the earth needed to fill the set of locks has been placed, said Rivas, adding that the new locks will be finished by the end of the year.
Workers are now putting in the preliminary installations for the floodgates, an indication that the work is progressing as planned, said Rivas.
The ACP reported on July 23 that the expansion project, which features new locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the canal, was 76.6 percent complete as of the end of June.