As I write this, it’s a stunning summer day in Auckland. The sun is sparkling off the Waitematā and the port is absolutely humming with activity.
There are currently three cruise ships supporting Auckland’s tourism and hospitality businesses, a roll-on roll-off cargo ship is discharging new vehicles and the last of the summer campervans and a couple of container ships are unloading your next pair of shoes and the products you’ll soon see on the shelves at your local supermarket.
Because goods arrive at their Auckland destination, the port is the lowest carbon option for importers. Auckland’s port is also located in a naturally sheltered harbour and largely unaffected by serious weather events and storm surges, so is a great port of choice for shipping lines. Last week, the team moved more containers per week than we have in years, and we are having our largest cruise season ever. This year, over 350,000 people will come ashore at Port of Auckland. Across the country, cruising passengers are expected to spend over $600m this year.
We’re seeing this first hand as CBD bars, restaurants and hotels are planning more staff for cruise ship arrivals. And demand for cruises is not slowing down. A recent survey out of Australia shows one in four people expecting to go on a cruise this year and New Zealand was named as the preferred international destination.
Around 3000 people access the Port of Auckland daily for work – stevedores, truck drivers, Customs and MPI officers, shipping agents, pilots and more. These essential workers are quietly enabling the city to thrive. The team that work behind the city’s historic red fence are also incredibly efficient at moving vehicles and containers through the port – the average time vehicles and containers spend at the port is around two days.
Now, let’s be honest, Port of Auckland isn’t moving any time soon. Our operations and footprint will change over time, but a port relocation in the next 30+ years just isn’t likely. So, we need to make sure we can support Auckland’s freight needs well into the future.
Over the next 12 months we expect to start channel deepening so we can welcome the larger ships soon to be coming our way, but we also need to build the port infrastructure that goes with it. We are planning to invest in developing its berth capacity over the next three to five years, and start the design and consent process to build a cruise facility that can adequately support the industry.
Port of Auckland in 2015 promised the city there’d be no more reclamation into the harbour and we’re sticking to our promise. However, in order to support the city into the future, we need to complete the berths at Fergusson North and Bledisloe North. And we need freight owners to choose rail to move their cargo.
Whilst the port is naturally the low-carbon entry port for goods in and out of Auckland, the challenge we face is that the port currently subsidises moving containers on and off the port by rail to the tune of $7m. Whilst we have the capacity to move up to 120,000 TEU (20ft equivalent containers) by rail per year, the demand from cargo owners to use rail doesn’t exist and as a business we need to start recovering the costs.
So, starting this year we are phasing in rail handling charges starting at $20 per TEU and slowly increasing to $90 over the next five years. What we will also do though is increase road access charges for trucks, particularly during peak times. To support a low-carbon city. To do our bit to reduce congestion, we will keep rail cheaper than our off-peak road access charges. We expect this will support a modal shift from road to rail.
In December, we were proud to receive the Deloitte Top 200 award for 'Most Improved Performance'. This wasn’t just because of the financial turnaround where we more than doubled our dividend to council, but we have seen the safety culture transform and the relationship with our unions, particularly the Maritime Union of NZ, change to one of partnership and collaboration. Last month, we released our half-year results and were pleased to announce a larger dividend to council than we did in the first half of FY23 and that we are on track to return a full year dividend of $35m.
And we continue to improve.
Roger Gray, CEO, Port of Auckland
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Published: March 2024
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #ponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay
Published: March 2024