The Panama Canal is further reducing daily ship crossings in the coming months due to a severe drought. Booking slots will be cut to 25 per day starting Nov. 3 from an already reduced 31 per day, and will be gradually reduced further over the next three months to 18 slots from Feb. 1.

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has imposed various passage restrictions in recent months to conserve scarce water, including cutting vessel draft and daily passage authorizations. Water levels in Gatun Lake, the rainfall-fed principal reservoir that floats ships through the Panama Canal’s lock system, have continued to decline to unprecedented levels for this time of year.

The drought is being attributed to a naturally occurring El Nino climate pattern, which is associated with warmer-than-usual water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The late arrival of this year’s rains and the lack of precipitation in the Canal watershed had forced the canal authority to reduce average daily transit capacity slightly to 32 vessels per day since July 30.

The existing restrictions have resulted in long delays, with tens of vessels waiting to transit the canal. An analyst note from the U.S. Energy Information Administration stressed that delays at the canal “have pushed shipping rates higher elsewhere by decreasing the globally available number of vessels.” It also said delays for some gas transporters were at record highs in Panama, pushing up the cost of shipping liquefied gas from the U.S.