Stymied Tauranga port gets new 2023 court date, as D-day for container capacity closes in

Container capacity at Port of Tauranga to run out within two years. Photo / Supplied

After a false start, Port of Tauranga has secured another Environment Court hearing date for an urgently needed container wharf extension, but frustration is boiling over at New Zealand's biggest and busiest port.

After Covid among objectors put the kibosh on a July court hearing, the country's main export port has been given February 27 next year as the start date for a three-week hearing.

"While we are pleased to have another court hearing date booked in, it is incredibly frustrating to still be chasing resource consent after three and a half years of consultation and detailed planning," chief executive Leonard Sampson told the Herald.

"Had we not had these delays, we would be finishing construction now. The estimated costs of construction have already increased by a third to more than $88 million."

"An additional berth will help us to alleviate the congestion in the supply chain, support New Zealand's coastal shipping and provide for the future growth in export cargoes such as kiwifruit.

"Our customers are facing the prospect of continued disruption and deteriorating service levels, with little relief in sight."

The berth extension has been formally planned since 2018, though it's been on the drawing board as a potential development since the Resource Management Act was introduced in 1991.

In 2018 the 385m extension was projected to cost $68.5m.

Sampson has long warned the NZX-listed port is likely to run out of container capacity in 2024 if current 7-plus per cent annual compound freight growth continues. The extension will take more than two years to build.

Considered as critical infrastructure by export and import industry leaders caught in New Zealand's supply chain crunch and pandemic-fuelled shipping disruption, the project was declined for the Government's shovel-ready and Covid fast-track infrastructure project programmes in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

It lost more than a year of progress through these unsuccessful processes.

Leaders of some of New Zealand's biggest export businesses, including Zespri, Fonterra and Oji Lodestar have expressed concern at the situation.

Infrastructure Commission chief executive Ross Copland has also weighed in, saying the case raised questions about the underlying purpose of a resource consent "given there are many other means by which the environmental, social and cultural elements associated with the ongoing operation and development of an established port could be handled".

"It is almost inconceivable that consent would be declined for such an upgrade and so it seems the underlying purpose of this expensive and time-consuming process is to determine the conditions under which the upgrade needs to occur, a matter which has been reviewed and resolved a number of times at ports around New Zealand and no doubt at Tauranga as well," Copland said.

Ten Maori entities planned to make submissions to the Environment Court at the cancelled July hearing.

The largest, Ngāi Te Rangi, has threatened to block the Tauranga harbour in protest at the proposed development, which involves associated dredging of 1.5 million cubic metres of sand from the harbour seabed. This includes 800,000 cubic metres, or 53 per cent, of already-consented dredging for channel-deepening purposes.

Sampson said New Zealand relied heavily on international shipping.

"It is critical that the country expedites further capacity as soon as possible. Tauranga is the best and easiest option to achieve this quickly."

Port of Tauranga operates the country's largest container terminal, handling around 42 per cent of all shipping containers. It handles 32 per cent of all New Zealand cargo and 36 per cent of all exports.