Ports of Auckland
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Ports of Auckland (POAL), the successor to the Auckland Harbour Board, is the company administering Auckland's commercial freight and cruise ship harbour facilities. As the company controls all of the associated facilities in Auckland (excluding the ferry terminals and local marinas for recreational yachting), this article is about both the current company and the ports of Auckland themselves.
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[edit] Infrastructure
Auckland has two commercial harbours (not counting ferry terminals). There are also two associated 'inland ports' (reshipment terminals without direct maritime access) serving the national reshipment trade. In its facilities, the company employs the equivalent of 568 full time staff and is in operation at all hours to allow for quick turnover.[1]
[edit] Port of Auckland
The port of Auckland is large container and international trade port on the Waitemata Harbour, lying on the central and eastern Auckland waterfront (north of Auckland CBD). The wharves and storage areas (mostly for containers, cars and other large cargos) are almost exclusively exclusively situated on reclaimed land, mostly in the former Commercial Bay, Official Bay and in Mechanics Bay.
Wharves (from west to east) are:
- Wynyard Wharf (also known as 'Tank Farm' or 'Western Reclamation', west of Viaduct Basin and mostly used for chemicals and liquids storage. It is to be turned into a mixed-use development and a park within the next decades)
- Princes Wharf (residential development and cruise ship terminal)
- Queens Wharf
- Captain Cook Wharf
- Marsden Wharf
- Bledisloe Wharf (on which Stadium New Zealand was once supposed to be built)
- Jellicoe Wharf
- Freyburg Wharf
- Fergusson Wharf (a very large and comparatively recent reclamation)
POAL recently (2006) bought three large new container cranes from Zhenhau Port Machinery Company, China for NZ$ 27 million, now installed at the Axis Intermodal Terminal at Fergusson wharf, where they join two older cranes bought in 2001. The new cranes are the largest in New Zealand, weight 1,250 tonnes and standing 103 m high, with a 56 m boom length allowing the lifting of two 20-foot containers at once, with sppeds of up to 150 m per minute. They were bought to provide the necessary lifting capacity and reach for Post-Panamax ships. Their diesel-electric generators are also configured to provide emergency power to refrigeration containers in case of power failure.[2][3]
[edit] Port of Onehunga
This second harbour is a smaller facility near Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour, south of Auckland City. While it is much closer to the industrialized parts of southern Auckland and Manukau City, the access via the shallow entrance of Manukau Harbour, and the generally less extensive facilities mean that it is of much lesser importance than the main port, and is used mostly for reshipment within New Zealand.
[edit] Turnover
[edit] Freight
Auckland has New Zealand's largest commercial port, its turnover of more than NZ$ 20 billion per year,[4] exceeding even that of large rivals like Tauranga substantially. Ports of Auckland handles the movement of 60% of New Zealand's imports and 40% of New Zealand's exports (both by value). 70% of this trade enters or leaves the country in containers. The ports move 4 million tonnes of 'breakbulk' cargo per year, as well as over 670,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot equivalent container units) (2006).[5]
One major import load are used cars (mainly relatively new Japanese models, due to the very strict technical requirements of the Japanese road authorities) which are unloaded at the wharves. Due to the very strict biosecurity regulations administered by the MAF, cars (and many other goods) have to pass through a decontamination facility, which strongly increases turnover times.[4]
[edit] Cruise ships
In the 2005/2006 season, POAL also catered for 48 cruise ship visits (at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Princes Wharf), with more than 100,000 passengers passing through the port, mostly disembarking for short stopover trips into Auckland or the surrounding region.[1] Each of the ships is estimated to add about NZ$ 1 million to the regional economy.[4]
So far, the largest ship to visit was the Queen Mary 2 in early 2007, which had to be diverted to Jellicoe Wharf due to its size. However, the largest one-day turnover came in February 2007, when the Statendam and the Sapphire Princess were due in Auckland to exchange around 8000 people at the terminal, the equivalent of 19 Boeing 747 jumbo jets.[6]
[edit] Economic impact
According to an economic impact assessment, a third of the local economy and 173,000 jobs in the Auckland Region are dependent on the port.[4] Ports of Auckland is 100% held by Auckland Regional Holdings, an Auckland Regional Council (ARC) investment entity. Annual dividends to the ratepayers within the last 15 years (as of 2006) have totalled NZ$ 500 million.[4]
[edit] History
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Auckland's trade, by virtue of being the largest city of an island colony nation, has always has always depended to a large degree on its harbours. Starting from the original wharves in Commercial Bay in the 1840s, and expanding via the land reclamation schemes that transformed the whole of the Auckland waterfront throughout the 19th and 20th centuries (and still continue today, especially at Fergusson Wharf), the port became the largest of New Zealand (and has been since at least 1924, incidentially the same year the Port of Onehunga was opened).[4]
[edit] References
- ^ a b About Us (from the POAL website, Sunday 05 March 2007)
- ^ Big booms are best - e.nz magazine, March/April 2007
- ^ Giant cranes complete journey from China - New Zealand Herald, Thursday 14 December 2006
- ^ a b c d e f Michael Lee: Port creates a vital link in our economy - New Zealand Herald, Thursday 15 February 2007
- ^ Port Overview (from the POAL website, Saturday 04 November 2006)
- ^ Cruise Ships Records Shattered With Nine Ships In One Week (from a POAL press release, Friday 09 February 2007
[edit] External links
- Ports of Auckland (official website)
