Dive Brief:

• Comments from the administrator of the Panama Canal Authority make it sound like there is room for the expansion of the Western Hemisphere's most important waterway to go ahead with the consortium that began it as the prime contractor.
• Jorge Quijano told ENR in an interview that the authority believes Grupo Unidos Por el Canal (GUPC) is conducting a work stoppage in all but name, and the 30% of overall work and 20% of the concrete work can be finished with smaller contractors for each end of the canal.
• The dispute is about cost overruns and whether and when the authority should pay for them, with GUPC saying needs the money now and the authority saying there is a claims process to follow before decisions are made.

Dive Insight:

Qiuijano says that all the electro-mechanical work that still has to be done can be handled by subcontractors and that that was GUPC's plan, too. The authority is spinning the demand for payment as an effort to hold the canal hostage, and there does not appear to be a counter strategy from the contractor's side.