Port Otago chief executive Geoff Plunket said at 13m at low tide, the port was already the deepest container port in New Zealand but the plan was to deepen the channel to 14m by the end of next year to accommodate growing trade and bigger container ships.
In hand with deepening the channel, the port company planned to deepen and add sheet piling to support the port berths and expand warehousing at Port Chalmers by 25% and at the adjacent Sawyers Bay.
Current port warehousing, which was used primarily for storing and packing about 17,000 containers a year with products such as timber, would be increased by 3800 square metres or 10%.
Finally, the company would extend a container wharf 135m with work starting mid-to-late 2016. It was considering buying a new tug and barge.
Plunket said Port Otago would use its own dredge which would reduce costs and mean it would be the first in the country to begin dredging to accommodate larger container ships.
The Port of Tauranga was calling for tenders to deepen its shipping channel.
Port Chalmers was also the only one able to receive ships at all stages of the tide because it did not have strong tidal flows.
The project, dubbed Next Generation Port Otago, was necessary to respond to international shipping changes, he said.
“To maintain our relevance within the international supply chain requires continued development, ensuring we can cater for larger container ships of the order of 6000 to 8000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent containers) and that there is enough cargo available to fill those bigger ships for decades to come.”
Plunket said as an infrastructure company it had to plan for the future and the Next Generation project was part of that forward thinking.
When the first container ship called at the port in 1971, it carried 1100 TEUs. Ships were now 4500 TEUs and Plunket said the company had resource consent to deepen the channel to 15m when shipping lines required deeper ports for even bigger vessels.
The deeper channel would allow ships to load more containers at other ports than at present and make Port Otago the last port of call for ships to top up their load before heading overseas.
“Being the last port provides an outstanding service to our exporters, especially chilled meat exporters.”
The port handles 180,000 TEUs a year, virtually all sourced from the south of the South Island, of which 40% were refrigerated containers.
That container volume had doubled in the last 10 years and Plunket forecast continued growth in primary export volumes.
Freight management company Kotahi’s chief executive Chris Greenough said container ships were getting bigger and ports needed to be able to handle them.
Kotahi was formed by Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms to manage their freight but now worked for other exporters as well.
Greenough said the development would secure Port Otago’s future as the main deep sea export port the lower South Island as opposed to being a coastal feeder port.
