Balboa

Across the Panama Canal, we find the port of Balboa located at its Pacific entrance. Balboa was inaugurated in 1909 and during 1997 received the name of Panama Ports Company, S.A. which was previously called Ancon Port. It was refurbished by the Americans at the beginning of the construction of the Canal from an old French dockage area.

At the moment, Balboa is the number one transshipment terminal in Latin Amrica with an annual capacity of 5 million TEUs, colaborating with different shipping lines for loading, discharging and transshipping operations from the Pacific basin to the region.

Balboa is operated by HUTCHISON PORTS PPC which is in charge of its administration and Cristobal in the Atlantic since 1997, after receiving a concesion allocated by the State and extensible for 25 years according Law 5 of January 16 from 1997. Since then, HUTCHISON PORTS PPC started the process of transformation of its berths and its adaption to the new patterns of globar commerce.

Hutchison Ports is a global leader in investments, developments and port operations around the world, with a network of 52 ports involving 27 countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, America and Australasia.

Balboa has an ideal location to grow as a hub for cargo, connecting major liner services from Far East and North America to the West Coast of South America, Central and the Caribbean.

With a total area of 40 hectare for container storage and 5 container berths, Balboa operates with 25 quay cranes (10 Post Panamax, 8 Panamax and 7 Super Post Panamax), and more than 47 RTGs in yard that allow to serve its clients. The transshipment operations of containerized cargo represent 90.2% of total the container movement while the rest is for the local market. A nearby interface with the railroad company allows the transshipment of containers bound to ports in Colon. Balboa also receives and dispatches dry and liquid bulks and specialized cargo, and offers a total of 3,612 reefer connections.

Balboa has changed from being two separate piers originally built for general cargo to a modern terminal capable of receiving up to two Post Panamax, two Panamax and a Feeder simultaneously. This port is equipped with technology to handle containers as its core business but also has infrastructure dedicated to handle Ro-Ro, dry and liquid bulk, and general cargo.

It has a warehouse with covered area of 2000 m2 to handle merchandise that has not been customs cleared and other sensitive cargo, generating value added to the cargo that is moved through its facilities. All the government authorities are available at the port for any cargo inspection, documentation, customs clearance and release.

For the RORO service, Balboa has a storage capacity of 2,750 CEU´s, expert drivers for the movement of heavy machinery, 2 docking positions and ramp productivity over 100 mph.

Balboa is engaged with keeping its integrity and security of the processes in the organization, so it complies with all aspects related to CSI (Container Security Initiative) established by USA and Panama, BASC (Business Alliance for Secure Commerce) program, PGCC (Global Program for Containers Control) of the UNODC (United Nations Office agains Drug and Crime), C-TPAT (Strategic Association of Customs-Industry against Terrorism) and the code PBIB (Code for Vessel Protection and Port Facilities), in order to guarantee the security of its clients.

Last update: February 2023

Balboa increased container movements in 2023 reaching 2.31 million TEUs with a total of 89.7% of transshipment. In 2022, handled 2.18 million TEUs with 90.2% transshipment movements. In 2021, moved 2.33 million TEUs and transshipment movements were 90.7% out of the total movements.