With the grand opening of the Panama Canal on June 27, 2016, the Suez Canal is struggling to maintain market share offering incentives to ships travelling between Asia and the U.S. East Coast. Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping recently announced a new lane taking advantage of the faster transit time from Asia to U.S. East Coast through the Panama Canal which allows for a shorter distance, reduced carbon footprint and gas emissions.The Panama Canal is not without its challenges for these behemoth ships. Allowing for the larger 8,500 TEU new Panamax ships, the space is tight for maneuvering and difficult for the huge ships. The COSCO ship, Xin Fei Zhou, scraped her side in transiting the locks on July 22. Officials said that the damage did not interrupt operations and were not considered severe.Not all U.S. East Coast ports are able to accept the larger new Panamax ships which requires dredging to 47 feet to accommodate the draft of the larger ships. The nine-year expansion project of the Panama Canal cost over $5 billion and is expected to cut an estimated $8 billion from global maritime costs.