Ship locks pass 2.3B ton milestone in Q1

By Chen Si.

By the end of the first quarter, the Three Gorges Ship Locks have handled more than 2.37 billion tons of cargo since opening to the public in 2003, according to the Yangtze River Three Gorges Navigation Authority. The locks have completed about 223,000 operations and facilitated the passage of more than 1.104 million ships. 
 

The Three Gorges Ship Locks opened to the public on June 18, 2003. Since then, waterway and port conditions in the Three Gorges Reservoir area have steadily improved. Logistics demand for building materials, mineral ores, and other commodities has continued to grow.

The steady increase of cargo through the Three Gorges Ship Locks has reinforced the Yangtze River’s status as the busiest inland river in the world.

Known as the "water staircase,” the ship lock is designed with an annual one-way passing capacity of 50 million tons and has always maintained efficient operation. It has achieved an annual cargo throughput of more than 100 million tons for 12 consecutive years and more than 150 million tons for four consecutive years.

If the total 2.37 billion tons of cargo were loaded into standard 40-foot containers (with a payload of 26 tons), the containers would circle the Earth’s equator 27.7 times if placed end to end.

Liu Yue, Tang Dongjun, Jiang Yanling contributed to this story