Danish dredging company Rohde Nielsen has won the tender. Port of Tauranga is deepening its shipping channels from 12.9m to 14.5m depth inside the harbour and to 15.8m outside the harbour.
Port Otago, which wants to deepen and widen its lower shipping channel for new, larger container vessels carrying up to 8000 containers, plans to dredge to a depth of 14m over less than 50% of the overall 13km long channel, using its suction dredge, New Era, and a new barge.
Port Otago will spend $30million to $45million on various infrastructure projects during the next two years.
Port of Tauranga, New Zealand's largest port company, would dredge with a combination of trailer hopper suction dredge and backhoe, starting in October and finishing by August next year, chief executive Mark Cairns said in a statement last week.
Aside from buying two new tugs, the port company has announced the purchase of a further two super post Panamax gantry cranes, and the dredging would be the ''final building block'' of a $350million capital expenditure programme over the past five years, Mr Cairns said.
South Port at Bluff is considering buying Tauranga's 1992 built tug, Te Matua, for about $2million, to replace its ageing 1973 built tug Monowai.
