Port Otago is bringing forward its recently consented channel deepening programme - and is poised to decide on purchasing a new $11 million tug from an overseas shipyard.
Dredging of the lower Otago Harbour, between Port Chalmers and Taiaroa Head, would be undertaken about the same time Tauranga's port is dredged, raising the prospect of the two ports becoming the key hubs for the North Island and South Island.
Lyttelton Port of Christchurch is still negotiating with insurers over rebuilding its post-earthquake infrastructure. Port Otago chairman Dave Faulkner yesterday told 100% port owner, the Otago Regional Council, that its original stage one dredging programme, under its Next Generation Project, was initially to start within 5 to 10 years, but that was now within a five-year time frame.
''Information around now suggests the larger ships will be here from [between] zero to five years. This is an opportunity for us to be getting on now,'' he said of channel deepening to attract larger vessels.
About half the channel towards Taiaroa Head is already 14m deep, with Port Otago at present considering whether to begin dredging the other half to 13.5m, or deeper to 14m. Port Otago has its own dredges.
Mr Faulkner was asked by ORC councillor Trevor Kempton if it would be possible for Tauranga and Port Otago to form an ''exclusivity'' alliance.
Mr Faulkner said ''shipping companies like to play one port off the other. They go where the cargo is.''
On the question of Tauranga and Port Chalmers, Mr Faulkner noted ships required maximum channel depths when coming into New Zealand laden with imports, and again when leaving New Zealand, even more heavily laden, with exports.
''It makes sense that they need deepwater ports, for imports and exports, at this end,'' he said.
Port Otago remained in the top quartile of container handling ports, having raised its rate slightly to 34.1 per hour, which was attractive to shipping lines, enabling them to achieve quicker vessel turnaround times, Mr Faulkner said.
Port Otago has picked up extra cargo by offering a round-trip freight train service to Timaru, which is gaining impetus, but Mr Faulkner did not expect the rebuilding of Lyttelton's port to result in any Canterbury cargo making its way to Port Chalmers.
Given there were no growth expectations directly from Canterbury, Mr Faulkner noted that during the past six months ''hinterland cargo'', generally meat, dairy and timber, was up 15% for the period.
Port Otago had spent $3.7 million over five years obtaining its dredging consents from the ORC for the next 25 years, allowing it to remove up to 7.2 million cu m of spoil. The stage one dredging was last December estimated by Port Otago to cost between $5 million and $10 million.
Port Otago chief executive Geoff Plunket said the 10-year-old $8.5 million tug Otago had been built in Whangarei and he had recently looked at options for building in New Zealand. However, the economics and designs of overseas yards were more attractive. Port Otago has two other 40-year-old tugs, described as being ''past their use-by dates''.
''We've been to Singapore and Vietnam . . . tugs would be more readily [available] off production lines,'' he said.
The specifications of a new tug were 24m long by 11.2m wide, with a bollard pull of 68 tonnes, compared with Otago's 56-tonne bollard pull.
Mr Faulkner said the new tug was still subject to a final decision by Port Otago's board in May, but he had told the ORC councillors earlier it could be delivered by May 2014.
