The Panama Canal Authority could double in coming years the number of containers that move through the key East-West commercial waterway, the canal's chief told a maritime conference on Friday.

A cargo-consolidation plan will seek to increase container volumes by assigning them to larger vessels, chief Ricaurte Vazquez told Houston maritime conference listeners. The authority also has granted shipping companies the ability to book future passages under a new auction of long-term reservation slots.

But he warned that U.S. tariffs on imports could introduce "distortions" to trade that reverberate at the canal, which also plans to expand offers for cargo trans-shipments via rail so larger vessels have more passage options, he said.