The tug, being built in Da Nang in Vietnam by Netherlands-based Damen Group, is part of up to $100 million in long-term infrastructure spending by the Otago Regional Council 100%-owned Port Otago.
Port Otago's chief pilot, Captain Hugh Marshall, said the construction had been straightforward, and other then specifying LED lighting, Taiaroa was a ''standard production''. It is the 63rd of its type built.
In recent weeks, the port company took delivery of two Finnish Kalmar straddle cranes, worth about $2.5 million, which are diesel/electric powered and can carry a container over a three-high stack.
Most of the infrastructure spending is aligned to Port Otago's channel-deepening ''new generation'' project, of which the start date is still to be finalised. Taiaroa will join Port Otago's other tug, Otago, which was delivered from a Whangarei yard about 10 years ago, for $8.5 million.
Port Otago's other two Dunedin-built tugs, the 40-year-old Rangi and 39-year-old Karetai, are to be put up for sale soon.
The two-crew 250-tonne Taiaroa is slightly larger than Otago at 24m long by 11.5m wide and has a bollard-pull of 68 tonnes, as opposed to Otago's 56-tonne pull.
