Dive Brief:

With some financial commitments on both sides, money from the performance-bond provider and an extension of credit repayment, it appears that work is good to go again on locks for the third lane of the Panama Canal.

Work ended last month when the contractor consortium, Grupo Unidos Por el Canal (GUPC), said the job was $1.63 billion over budget and its members needed the authority to cover it.

In the agreement, each side if putting money toward getting work rolling again, Zurich North America will turn the performance bond into a $400 million controlled escrow fund, and the builders get delays on repaying lines of credit if they hit certain deadlines, including opening the new canal lane by December 2015.

Dive Insight:

The project is over budget, though it is not clear if the $1.63 billion is an accurate number. The authority demands that all claims for extra costs go through a process set in the contract, and three claims totaling $1.6 billion are in various places of the three-step process.