Lyttelton Port Company exchanged its 500,000th TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container) for the first time in its financial year in the last week of June.
The 500,000th TEU was exchanged on the CV Bernhard Schulte in the early hours of June 29.
The ship is a regular visitor to Lyttelton. She was built in 2010, is 264 metres long and carries up to 4600 TEU.
Port container operations general manager Simon Munt thanked all staff for playing their part in the achievement.
“Our continued growth is only possible with everyone’s hard work, dedication and innovation from the teams at Lyttelton Port, across to our inland ports, CityDepot and MidlandPort, as well as our customers,” he says.
“This landmark is important in signalling to others that we are no longer a small, 100,000 TEU-a-year port.
“This also links into the ongoing growth with the new coastal services recently announced. We have hit this large milestone, and are showing no signs of slowing down.
“Facilitating the trade of containers is not only a crucial part of our success as a business, but the success of the economy of the Canterbury region and the South Island,” Munt says.
LPC has invested heavily in infrastructure and plant to handle the increase. Currently an $85 million expansion of the container terminal on the Te Awaparahi Bay reclamation is underway, which will lift the capacity of the terminal from 500,000 TEU to 620,000 by the end of this year.
This comes on top of the doubling of rail capacity through the investment in a new, second rail siding, the purchase of a fleet of Noel 1 over 3 straddles, and the construction of reefer towers.
These developments will support growth through the port as it welcomed several new shipping services and lines this year.
Since 1973, LPC has exchanged more than seven million TEU, growing in the last 50 years from just 1000 TEU annually to 503,000 TEU this year.
