While it’s not unheard of for gas carriers to avoid the canal, the two ships went all the way across the Pacific Ocean, before turning away only when they had reached the mouth of the waterway, the tracking data show. The Pyxis Pioneer and the Sunny Bright were empty, having delivered cargoes to customers in Asia. That’s threatening trade in energy, consumer goods and food as carriers are forced to sail thousands of extra miles to make deliveries. The problem is so bad that increasingly stringent quotas are being imposed on how many ships can pass through it. A lack of rainfall, blamed on climate change, is leading to a steady decline in levels in the Gatun Lake that feeds the conduit. The Panama Canal doesn’t have enough water. It’s not certain where they were headed, but the biggest LPG exporters in the region are producers in the US Gulf. The Pyxis Pioneer and the Sunny Bright, which between them can transport roughly 158,000 cubic meters of liquefied petroleum gas, both got to within about 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the canal in recent days before sailing away, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. (Bloomberg) - Two giant gas tankers performed u-turns just miles from the Panama Canal, where months of low rainfall is snarling traffic and bringing chaos to the vital waterway.