Asian buyers are increasingly routing U.S. crude through the Panama Canal as Middle Eastern supply disruptions push the canal to a four‑year high. The shift has driven last‑minute slot prices to nearly $400,000, underscoring the growing importance of the North American transit route. The canal, the fastest route for American energy exports to Asia on smaller vessels, has become the primary alternative to the Strait of Hormuz after the latter's closure. However, its locks cannot accommodate supertankers that carry up to 2 million barrels, limiting the volume it can handle. Between January and June 2025, 2.3 million barrels per day of crude and petroleum liquids moved through the Panama Canal, compared with 20.9 million bpd that passed through the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. exports via the canal topped 200,000 bpd this month, close to the highest level since July 2022, according to Kpler data cited by Bloomberg. The average auction price for a slot rose from $135,000–$140,000 before the conflict to about $385,000 between March and April, the Panama Canal Vice President of Finance, Víctor Vial, said. The Panama Canal Authority's Administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, noted that strong performance was coming from container traffic and liquefied petroleum gas, and that energy products were playing an increasingly important role in the volumes handled. He also highlighted a recent example in which a ship carrying fuel to Europe was redirected to Singapore, paying $4 million for a transit slot to meet the high demand there, the administrator told the Associated Press. While the canal cannot replace the Strait of Hormuz, the surge in oil tanker traffic and soaring slot fees signal a permanent shift in global oil trade routes.