The country’s key port for imports, Ports of Auckland, is hopeful that many importers might see a return to relatively normal wait times towards the end of April.
A massive bottleneck at the port has taken a toll on the port’s first half result, which saw net profit fall to $13.6 million in the six months to December 31. That compared to $17.2m a year earlier.
Revenue also dropped heavily, to $114.1m, from $123.2m the year before.
While port congestion has been an international issue, Ports of Auckland chief executive Tony Gibson said the port had been unable to cash in on a Covid-triggered global freight boom because an unfortunate clash of problems, particularly staff shortages.
However, he said things should rapidly improve for importers and retailers waiting on goods from late April after four key recruited drivers arrived in the country.
He hoped the port would be “manned up to return to the majority of services” by the second half of April.
The port company was expecting a similar financial result for the second half, but Gibson anticipated many of its current problems would be behind it after that.
”That is not to say the second half won’t be difficult – it will – but we have plans in place to resolve the issues that affected us in this period.”
At the height of the backlog late last year, ships were left in Auckland harbour for more than two weeks, but at present Gibson noted there were no ships waiting.
The demands on freight had been “unprecedented’’.
“We’re being told by importers that there’s about a 35 to 45-day fulfilment time for orders and as an example, if you want to get some containers from China, you won’t get space until April. The just-in-time principle as we used to know it is, I think, dead and buried forever.’’
Work on the port’s other problem, its half-finished programme to automate its straddles, is set to resume from April 7 and end around mid-June to July, which Gibson said would “increase capacity significantly”.
He said he did not understand criticisms that the project was slowing the port’s output, suggesting that there were “parties’’ opposed to automation.
The upgrade was meant to be completed last March but when borders closed, overseas trainers and software engineers were unable to enter the country. Upskilling existing staff provided a workaround.
Gibson said the difficulty getting ships through the port did not mean there was a glut of containers on the wharves.
“We have one of the lowest ‘dwell times’ in the world, so 1.8 to 2 days by the time it comes off the ship and is delivered out the gate.”
The improvements next month mean services from north and south-east Asia will be back to normal, although some trade links like those with North America are still being affected by offshore issues.
However, Gibson warned there was also a growing issue for exporters, whose supply of empty containers was not flowing around the country as it normally did.
Exporters at ports short of containers would be asking their shipping lines to send them south, however, those going through Ports of Auckland itself would have plenty of ”empties”.
All streams of business were down during the port’s first half – 12.5 per cent for containers, 4 per cent for general cargo and 15 per cent fewer cars.