Claims of 22,000 TEU ships coming to NZ are rubbish (as are closing POAL in favour of Northport)

A fellow called Ian Turner posting on the Campaign for Better Transport page is a fantasist who believes that Maersk Line are going to send their 22,000 TEU container ships to New Zealand in the next few years. According to Turner and a very few associates this means every other port in NZ except Northport will have to close down as none of them can be made deep enough to take these ships. They even believe Port of Auckland should close down so that it can be moved to Northport.

Some facts are in order here:

1. There are no plans by Maersk Line or anyone else to bring 22,000 TEU container ships to New Zealand any time in the foreseeable future. 
2. Closing POAL is not widely supported even though there has been a ginger group trying to stop the further development of it. 
3. POAL has a consent to dredge their channel deeper to handle the size of ships that are likely to come to New Zealand over the next 20 years. 
4. Currently Port of Tauranga is the only port in NZ that can handle the 9000 TEU container ships, other ports are gearing up to equip themselves and/or dredge to receive ships of this size. This size of ship is the largest container vessel expected to visit NZ between now and roughly 2035. 
5. There will be incremental increase in ships visiting in NZ gradually over the future but there is in no way going to be a sudden leap from 9000 TEU to 22,000 TEU, it is just not going to happen that way.
6. The NZ Shipping Council believes there need to be four container ports over the whole of NZ able to receive the largest vessels (9000 TEU), not one single port. This is very important for several reasons
• The international ships move a significant volume of domestic containers around the coastline of NZ as it is. This is important because moving this volume by sea is much cheaper than land based transport options, including rail.
• Landing containers closest to the urban centre they are going to is much more cost effective than railing them all from Northport to anywhere in NZ. 
• Railing from Northport to Auckland would require huge expenditure on the North Auckland Line which is a sunk cost, whereas nothing needs to be spent on the blue highway or the port infrastructure to keep moving the containers by sea as they are now.
• Northport would need billions of dollars spent on it to equip it to handle large container ships. They are currently no better equipped than Port of Napier in this regard without a dedicated container wharf and proper cranes, they just have mobile cranes which are slower working than overhead cranes. 
• By the time you get down to the South Island the cost of moving the containers would be much greater. At the moment there is already coastal shipping used to move containers by sea between Tauranga and Timaru. If you are going to use a ship to move the international containers it may as well be the ship that carried them on their overseas voyage.
7. The four ports mentioned above being likely Auckland, Tauranga, Lyttelton and Otago. Hence Napier, Centreport, Nelson and Northport would not be international container terminals.
8. Similarly the Shipping Council has had the research done, by international transport experts, to determine the size trend for container ships, they are credibly saying there is no likelihood of the Maersk Triple E or any similar size of container ship (mega-ship) coming to NZ in the foreseeable future.
9. One of the biggest issues with mega ships is that the BCR actually drops even though they are cheaper to run per unit of freight, the reason is that very large sums have to be spent on infrastructure on the land to handle these very large volumes of containers that would be moving on and off such a ship.
10. If this type of ship came to NZ it would reduce the frequency of shipping services, this is very material when handling perishable goods that we export overseas.
11. Northport is no more of a deepwater port than say Port of Tauranga. There is no inherent advantage that Northport has for large ships than any of the other major ports. The nonsense statements that Northport is the only ship that can handle Triple E class ships is wrong firstly because they will never come here and secondly because contrary to claims, all the other ports can be dredged easily to the required depth.
12. Northport does not have a deeper channel that is free from dredging compared to other major ports. It would still need to be dredged. There is a very small advantage over Tauranga in terms of channel length but that is inconsequential. There is some advantage over Auckland, Lyttelton and Otago which all have relatively long entrance channels that need to be dredged but in practice this will not amount to much.

The idea of closing POAL in favour of Northport is being championed by a few hardcore rail enthusiasts and most notably Winston Peters and others from NZ First. Since Winston Peters and Shane Jones have strong connections in the Northland region it is obvious they are playing pork barrel politics to try and buy votes. The entire proposal is ridiculous. It now looks like the government wants Ports of Auckland to stay where it is. They have committed to a ports study for the Upper North Island but that is all.

Labour's 2017 campaign transport policies [6]: Ports and Coastal Shipping

Comment

Coastal Freight Strategy

The Sea Change strategy was first introduced in the final year of the previous Labour government. It recognises that coastal shipping can play a much greater role in bulk freight transport around New Zealand than is currently the case. given the proximity of most major population centres to the coastline and the long thin shape of the country. A key aspect of this policy is that coastal shipping is likely to be competitive against rail transport for significant bulk freight between two ports and therefore the development of such services is a worthwhile alternative to expending significant funds on new rail development projects.

Let's look at an example: regional freight transport needs in the Eastland region. Historically a part of these needs for about 70 years was met by the now-closed Napier to Gisborne rail line. While significant the rail line has never carried large volumes of freight, partly because Gisborne is served by highway routes going north as well as south, and because of the major port at Tauranga not being equipped with a direct rail connection to Gisborne. A historical proposal to develop a rail line between Gisborne and the Bay of Plenty has never been realised and is unlikely to be in future. Hence when Labour has said the case for the line needs to be sustainable they are in some measure reflecting on the difficult economics of the Napier-Gisborne line and the viable alternatives.

The Napier-Gisborne rail line is difficult to justify the continued operation of because of high maintenance costs and a low level of population between the two extremities. It is possible that logging traffic out of Wairoa for shipping from Napier might be worthwhile by rail as this part of the route has been much easier to maintain over the historical life of the railway and is in much better shape than points further north where nearly all the maintenance cash has historically gone.

In the Gisborne region there are many forests that are nowhere near a rail line and will not benefit from any developments on the NGL, unless it is considered necessary to ship logs south to Napier for export or processing. At present several processing facilities exist or are being built in Gisborne for the export wood trade. Logging is a bulk freight that is quite cost sensitive and it is not a given that all the logs should be transported to Napier for shipping when coastal freight services can be and in fact are currently operated in conjunction with Port of Tauranga. Logging ships often call into Gisborne to load from empty before heading north to Tauranga to finish loading and head to their overseas destination because Gisborne has limited shipping draught. Logging traffic through Port of Gisborne has developed in a major way over the past 30 years and volume continues to increase.

Likewise some of the other types of traffic that have been touted for the re-opening of the NGL are currently being handled by ship, these include the squash traffic to Japan and kiwifruit from the Gisborne region. The latter in particular has followed the international trend of eschewing containerised transport in favour of specialised reefer ships owing to the increased efficiency and resulting eco-friendly advantages. This means the alternative of railing containers of kiwifruit to Gisborne is not as guaranteed as some claim. At present reefers come into Gisborne to take a full load of kiwifruit for overseas markets. These are other examples of how coastal shipping can be more viable than rail.

Port of Tauranga is well placed to serve the Gisborne region from coastal shipping services. It has in recent years operated a coastal container service from Timaru making that port able to compete for international freight against Christchurch and Dunedin. As the same ships currently sail past Gisborne on their route between Tauranga and Timaru it would be easy to implement port calls at Gisborne to shift containers of freight to/from Tauranga, or alternatively have a separate weekly service in operation. There are currently no container services operating at the Port of Gisborne.

Ports Strategy

A national ports strategy is a long overdue concept. It is unlikely however that a Labour government will be willing to rationalise the major ports as there is likely to be significant political cost in so doing.

This policy addresses some of the following considerations:

• Calls for Northport to be developed as an alternative to Auckland and to take over all the freight transport from Auckland.
• The need for the larger regional ports to invest in development to handle larger ships and other significant financial expenditures.

Currently in the North Island the major freight ports are at Northport, Auckland, Tauranga, Napier, Wellington and Taranaki. Taranaki is the only one of these which does not have any container services at present. In addition, Port of Gisborne is a significant regional port in Eastland. 

Due to agitation at local level in Auckland against the increased development of the port in the Waitemata Harbour the Auckland Council has been forced to consider alternative sites for a new port and this has also led to the situation where Northland interests have suggested the port at Marsden Point could replace the existing Port of Auckland operation. However Auckland Council is not likely to agree to such a strategy and is looking at sites within the Auckland region as being more suitable. Relocating the port of Auckland operations to Northport would impose additional haulage and environmental costs due to the greater expense of moving freight in that volume by rail and would also require massive investment in the rail link between the two centres totalling billions of dollars. This has to be contrasted with the alternatives of coastal freight transport which of course is how most freight already reaches Auckland. 

For the rest of the North Island it is a question of how best to serve areas and which port they should be served from. The key question here is the service of the area from Tauranga to Wellington. At present Port of Tauranga competes with Napier and Napier competes with Wellington. The west coast up to Taranaki is a different scenario altogether, and is impacted by the relative lack of shipping services up that side of the country. Because most of the ports in New Zealand are on or close to the east coast, shipping services can prioritise the east coast for movements between ports and therefore east coast ports have an advantage. This would be also a major consideration should Manukau or another west coast site be chosen as an alternative for the Port of Auckland in the future.

The competition between Tauranga and Napier is evident in the proposals by Napier to reopen the Napier-Gisborne railway line to move freight to and from Gisborne. Gisborne has long been served by road and rail transport alternatives from the north and its position roughly between the two regional centres as well as its own significant port operation (not seen anywhere else in NZ at present for this size of population) makes coastal shipping via Tauranga a viable alternative to Napier based shipping services. Napier also lacks significant freight infrastructure such as full container cranes that means their throughput of handling containers is slower than ports like Wellington that have the historical high volumes of container volume and resultant infrastructure.

Given the existence of viable rail services between most regions the following rationalisation of ports in the North Island is realistic:

• International container ports for the North Island be at Auckland, Tauranga and Wellington as these centres already have the infrastructure developed or in place to handle large shipping volumes. Auckland is subject to the development of an alternative West Coast site.
• Feeder services by coastal shipping or rail from secondary ports or centres such as Napier, Gisborne, Northland, Taranaki, Palmerston North and Hamilton.

South Island:

• The West Coast of the South Island has never had a viable international deep water port development. It seems unlikely the government will agree to fund one in future. Rail is a very expensive alternative given the long distances involved that limits the economic potential of the West Coast. However successive governments seem to accept that the West Coast is not going to be a future economic centre of major importance that justifies a port development.
• Rail development between Nelson and the West Coast makes more sense than New Zealand First's proposed Picton-Blenheim route. This would give access to Port of Nelson for freight volume from the West Coast. However there is no distance advantage for the West Coast compared to Lyttelton. This means that a rail link for Nelson is very unlikely to ever be developed.
• There are three major East Coast ports all competing for freight. It is questionable that all of these facilities are needed and Lyttelton should be prioritised over the Timaru and Dunedin ports given the need for facilities for new large container vessels. 
• Port of Nelson is in a different position as they have no rail link to any other port. Coastal services from this port to other ports such as Picton and Wellington is quite viable to serve either Nelson or Marlborough regional freight needs.

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Ports and Coastal Shipping

Labour will:

• As part of a national freight strategy, develop a national ports strategy with a particular focus on the upper north island.
• Refresh and move to implement the ‘Sea Change’ strategy to revitalise Coastal shipping.

NZ First proposed relocation of Port of Auckland

• http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11914442

The biggest problem for this proposal is the current state of the rail line to Northland. However all relocation proposals to some extent especially an alternative, the Firth of Thames, are affected to some degree. (Firth of Thames is better than the alternative Manukau because it is on the same side of the country as Tauranga)

Basically the Northland line would have to be doubled which includes all the bridges and tunnels unless these are left as single track sections, but this increases the costs of signalling all the transitions from single to double track. How Tauranga wins at present in competition with Port of Auckland for freight in the Auckland region is that the Auckland to Hamilton line except for a short section through the Whangamarino Swamp is all double tracked and has been for 50 years.

I have no idea of the claims that it will cost this amount or that amount. The new Marsden Point line that is proposed will be another cost.

Essentially this proposal is like suggesting we should close down Port of Lyttelton in the South Island in favour of Picton. There is a rail network but it makes no sense to move the large volumes of freight the extra distance by rail unless there is zero alternative. I don't think the arguments about Northland being closer to shipping lanes matter that much. It is still cheaper to keep the freight on the ship and unload at Auckland than moving it by rail because the rail line would have to be engineered for extremely large and heavy trains to be able to compete with the large container ships that will be coming to NZ in the future. 

Port of Tauranga can already compete effectively with Auckland without needing more money spent on rail line upgrades (OK, they have had some financed already by Kiwirail which means taxpayers probably contributed to it) and coastal shipping to Northland from Auckland is a viable alternative to rail that doesn't require the expenditure on the tracks. It's almost totally guaranteed that if Northport takes a lot of the existing Auckland freight that large amounts of that freight will go by road. Because for example to move the vehicles you will need to equip special trains with special wagons that don't exist now, which is all a waste of time and money when all that is needed is for the ship they are being transported on to go to a different port. Rail falls down when special wagons have to be purchased for a particular traffic. It is true that you do need special car transporter trucks but there would be companies building them in NZ whereas rail wagons would probably have to be built overseas and shipped to here.

Some political parties have got sensible approaches to coastal shipping as an alternative to rail, because our population distribution is mainly near ports (Hamilton and Palmerston North being among the few exceptions) meaning coastal shipping is viable and even the likes of Mainfreight are saying they want to keep it as an option on the Lyttelton-Wellington run. It has to be remembered Mainfreight got their start by using coastal shipping to undermine what was then the NZR rail network. Fast forward and Kiwirail still has a monopoly, but only on rail itself.