Port of Tauranga profits up despite revenue fall

One of the largest car-transporting ships, The Sunbelt Spirit, shown docked at the Port of Tauranga earlier this monthh ready for loading kiwifruit. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times.

Port of Tauranga reported a 7.3 per cent rise in full year profit to $45.2 million as dairy and log export cargoes increased.

Despite those gains, total operating revenue for the year to the end of June fell 3.5 per cent on the previous year to $143.6m, with container throughput down 4 per cent.

Chairman John Parker said the financial market collapse caused a commodity boom to turn to bust. For Port of Tauranga that meant a considerable change to trading patterns with overcapacity, especially in container shipping.

A final dividend of 18c per share is to be paid, compared to 16cps last year. The total for the year is 27cps, compared to 25cps the year before.

Port of Tauranga continued to make a public stand on the issue of port rationalisation, said Parker.

Newer and larger container ships wanted to begin servicing New Zealand but required spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure to accommodate them.

"That cost and the requirements of these vessels to make at most two New Zealand port calls and to discharge and load big tonnages quickly means that New Zealand cannot afford or service more than two such ports.

"A port hierarchy must develop where other ports feed in cargoes to the two primary ports by road, rail and sea," Parker said.

"If port owners don't move, falling revenues and market forces will dictate change."

Chief executive Mark Cairns said the port company's rise in earnings on reduced trade and revenue could be attributed to reduced costs, the improved dairy and log exports, increased property income from 13.7ha of land bought in the past 17 months, and lower interest costs and a lower corporate tax rate.

Total trade was down 0.5 per cent on the previous year to 13.46 million tonnes.

Log exports were up 27 per cent, dairy exports up 24 per cent, meat exports up 17 per cent and coal imports up 68 per cent.

Declines included processed forestry exports, down 5 per cent, kiwifruit exports down 4 per cent, palm kernel and grain imports down 10 per cent, steel exports down 6 per cent, oil imports down 6 per cent, and fertiliser base imports down 23 per cent.

While it remained difficult to provide guidance for the new year, for now the port remained confident of maintaining a full year earnings result similar to last year's, Cairns said.

Port of Tauranga shares were unchanged shortly after the results announcement at $6.55, having ranged between $7.30 and $4.85 in the past year.

- NZPA