Port of Tauranga says widespread disruption still affects the international supply chain but is hopeful to see a return to schedule reliability early next year.
That was the message to shareholders at its annual meeting on October 28 with management commenting that delays continue at other ports, resulting in ongoing congestion at Tauranga’s container terminal.
Chair Julia Hoare says vessels are still arriving off window.
Only six out of 16 weekly services are showing up on time at the moment – the ones that call first at Tauranga.
“There has been a silver lining to the disruption, with increased storage revenues, but it has put an enormous strain on our team and our service providers.
“We are hopeful a return to schedule reliability early in 2023 will allow us to return to pro forma windows, enabling better resource planning and smoother cargo flows around the country,” Hoare says.
Chief executive Leonard Sampson says the team has done its best to incentivise smooth cargo flows over the year, and results reflect an increase in storage revenues.
The container terminal is still operating with around 50% more containers in the yard than prior to the impacts of Covid and subsequent shipping congestion, he says.
“Our ability to increase throughput is constrained by vessels continuing to arrive off schedule, labour shortages, and berth capacity at the container terminal. We could take more container ships if we had the additional berth that we have been trying to consent for the past three and a half years.
“Our automation project will unlock additional capacity within our current footprint. It will also help us improve safety, reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions,” Sampson says.
In Augusts, Port of Tauranga posted its full-year financial result with a net profit after tax of $111.3 million on the back of 25.6 million tonnes of trade for the period.
Profit was up 8.7% compared to the previous year’s $102.4m result while trade volume was down slightly by 0.5% compared to 25.7 tonnes last year.
Total revenue increased 10.9% to $375.3m which reflected strong diversity of cargoes, resilient operational performance and ongoing storage revenues.
Container volumes increased 3.4% to 1.24 million TEUs, imports increased 3% to 9.7m tonnes and exports decreased 2.5% to 15.9m tonnes.
