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Fresh from a $5.25 billion, nine-year expansion that’s upending decades-old trade routes, it turns out the Panama Canal is also doing a little good for the planet.

One year into operations of the expanded Panama Canal, the freight transportation world has witnessed leviathan containerships, gargantuan land-based cranes and dredging projects along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, but intermodal shipping professionals say it’s too early to quantify the precise impact of the massive infrastructure project.

Southern ports are experiencing a record foreign trade boom thanks in part to an expanded Panama Canal that permits Asian cargo ships to reach them more easily.

The Panama Canal truly entered the big-ship era the week of May 8 when the largest vessel to date — a vessel from Asia that is as long as the Eiffel Tower is high and 158 feet wide — transited the expanded canal en route to the United States.

Chinese state firms have expressed an interest in developing land around the Panama Canal, the chief executive of the vital trade thoroughfare said, underlining China's outward push into infrastructure via railways and ports around the world.

The Panama Canal's recent expansion will create economic opportunities for South Texas but also pressures ports to step up improvements to their infrastructure, a panel of transportation industry experts said Aug. 18.

Initial containership traffic through the expanded Panama Canal is averaging about one larger vessel per day during a ramp-up period that should be followed by exponential growth in the months and years ahead.

PortMiami officially joined the Neopanamax era July 9, when the MOL Majesty — a vessel too big to fit through the original Panama Canal — became the first ship to arrive at the port after transiting the newly expanded canal.

BOGOTA, Colombia — A Chinese freighter laden with nearly 9,500 metal cargo containers transited the expanded Panama Canal on June 26, inaugurating the interoceanic waterway and opening a new era in global trade.