The 500,000-litre silo, which weighs 28 tonnes empty, was transported 48km from the Mercer Stainless manufacturing plant to Fonterra's new dryer factory at Darfield.
The giant silo was one of 22 of varying sizes being built for the site, an order worth "several" million dollars to the company, Mercer Christchurch operation's branch manager Ross Coppard said.
The silo, which stands 22m tall and has a 5.8m diameter, will hold raw milk before it went into the factory for processing.
While Fonterra's first new processing site in 14 years is on track for taking milk from August, plans are already under way for a second dryer at the Canterbury site.
Work on the new $300 million development will begin in the next few months and is due to be completed for the 2013 season.
The second dryer would have double the processing capacity of the first and enable the site to process an additional 4.4 million litres of milk a day - on top of the 2.2 million the first dryer would do, trade and operations manager Gary Romano said.
The Darfield site had always been about "future proofing" Fonterra's operations for milk production growth in the South Island.
Since the plans were announced in 2009, the co-operative had seen even more increases in the regions than anticipated, Mr Romano said.
Sixty new jobs would be created, adding to the team of 100.
The site would supply milk powder to markets including the Middle East, Southeast Asia and China.