MEDIA RELEASE: 19 December 2012 - A positive for Taranaki's exporters and importers

A positive for Taranaki's exporters and importers

Port Taranaki Limited welcomes Pacifica Shipping's new coastal container vessel, "Tini", soon to be renamed "Spirit of Independence", making its maiden call at the Port of Taranaki on Thursday morning (20 December).
The ship arrives from Nelson on its northbound leg up the North Island’s west coast to the main Port of Auckland.

The 6,700 tonne 133-metre long ship adds much needed cargo capacity for moving goods between key North and South Island ports, the company says. The vessel will make weekly visits to New Plymouth carrying up to 400 loaded containers - including 100 with refrigerated goods - into and out of the port.

"Port Taranaki sees the importance of maintaining container services and this weekly call with increased capacity will provide exporters and importers an option to trans-ship through major container ports" says Port Taranaki's chief executive officer, Roy Weaver.

It is similar in size to Pacifica's other vessel, "Spirit of Endurance", which operates up and down the east coast of the North Island. "Together the two vessels will move upwards of 1,600 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) on north and southbound inter-island routes per week," says Pacifica's chief executive, Steve Chapman.

Steve says for shippers of domestic and export goods, this extra capacity and sailing frequency provides a price competitive and very efficient freight link between the main trading centres. Rising volumes of export and import cargo in particular require trans-shipment between the major ports and feeder ships such as ours are essential for this task.

Steve continues “moving cargo around the coast directly from port to port is by far the most environmentally sound and least disruptive mode of long-haul transport. As freight volumes increase, along with energy costs and CO2 emission concerns, there is clearly potential for further expansion of our coastal shipping network.
Every container of cargo moving by sea is one less imposition on New Zealand's increasingly congested highways and costly road and rail infrastructure.”

ENDS
For more information contact: Steve Chapman 021 327 401; or
Roy Weaver 027 434 3634.