Manzanillo International Terminal (

abbreviation An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

: MIT,

UN/LOCODE UN/LOCODE, the United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations, is a geographic coding scheme developed and maintained by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). UN/LOCODE assigns codes to locations used in trade and transpor ...

: PAMIT) is located east of the Atlantic opening of the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...

on Manzanillo Bay,

Colón Province Colón () is a province of Panama. The capital is the city of Colón. It covers an area of 4,575.5 sq.km, and the latest estimate of population (for 2019) is 294,060.Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo, Panama. Overview This province h ...

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

. MIT is a distribution center for cargo destined for cities within Panama and nearby countries in

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. It is one of the largest

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

transshipment Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination. One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g. ...

terminals in the region and has direct access into the

Colón Free Trade Zone The Colón Free Trade Zone is a free port in Panama dedicated to re-exporting a wide variety of merchandise to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is located on the Caribbean coast, near the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, in the province ...

(CFZ). MIT, has multimodal operations including container input and output from rail, vessel and gate operations.

History

The project area, known as South Coco Solo, was a

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

seaplane base during the World War II era. The base reverted to

under the

Torrijos–Carter Treaties The Torrijos–Carter Treaties ( es, link=no, Tratados Torrijos-Carter) are two treaties signed by the United States and Panama in Washington, D.C. on September 7, 1977, which superseded the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903. The treaties guara ...

of 1977. During the 1980s, the area was used as a storage facility and distribution center for vehicles for

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

. To avoid the costs and logistics associated with moving cars to and from Cristóbal, it was decided to build a

roll-on/roll-off Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using ...

(RORO) berth at the distribution and storage facility and thereby directly import and export vehicles on site. Thus, the original concept of MIT was born. By August 1993, with the entry of the multinational

SSA Marine SSA may refer to: Geography * Sub-Saharan Africa Organizations * Safe Schools Alliance, a British advocacy group * SSA Global Technologies, American software company acquired by Infor Global Solutions * Shan State Army, a former insurgent gro ...

, the original RORO berth concept grew into a project to create a world-class container transshipment facility equipped with over 1,200 meters of berth, ship-to-shore

gantry crane A gantry crane is a crane built atop a gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the world, to small shop cranes, us ...

s, and modern terminal management computer systems. The Atlantic terminus of the re-built

Panama Canal Railway The Panama Canal Railway ( es, Ferrocarril de Panamá) is a railway line linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in Central America. The route stretches across the Isthmus of Panama from Colón (Atlantic) to Balboa (Pacific, near P ...

was constructed nearby. MIT began operations on April 16, 1995.

Geographical Information

* MIT's geographical position is . * The access channel is 3.0 kilometers from sea buoy. * The

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...

opening is 200 meters wide, and the access channel has a depth of 14.0 meters. * The

turning basin A turning basin, winding basin or swinging basin is a wider body of water, either located at the end of a ship canal or in a port to allow cargo ships to turn and reverse their direction of travel, or to enable long narrow barges in a canal to tur ...

diameter is 600 meters.

Storage

The terminal's total area is 520,000 square meters, with a container storage capacity of 37,000 TEU, and a container repair yard with 15,000 square meters, including 1,300 square meters of undercover repair facility and connections for 1,145 refrigerated containers.

Berthing

* Main berth: 1,240 meters of contiguous container berth with a depth of 14 meters alongside * Extra berth: 400 meters of container berth with a depth of 14 meters alongside * Ro-ro berth: 300-meter "Mediterranean-style" ro-ro berth with a depth of 12.5 meters alongside All berths are 2.5 meters above MSL (mean sea level). Tide variance is 30 centimeters.

Government

Panama’s Quarantine and Customs departments have offices at MIT and can register clearances on MIT’
Mainsail
information system. MIT is a phyto-zoosanitary zone certified by Panama’s agriculture department and can handle sensitive agricultural products.

Awards

The United Kingdom’
Containerisation International
named MIT one of the world’s ten most efficient ports, and the terminal has been recognized three times as the "Best Container Terminal in the Caribbean" by the

Caribbean Shipping Association The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and So ...

External links

Manzanillo International Terminal web site

Manzanillo International Terminal at Port Source

Manzanillo International Terminal Location at Google Maps

Manzanillo International Terminal Photo
{{Panama Canal Container terminals Ports and harbours of Panama Buildings and structures in Colón Province