Shipping rates in New Zealand waters have become "unsustainably low" in the wake of supply chain agreements such as between Kotahi and Port of Tauranga, NBR reports as South Port New Zealand chairman Rex Chapman saying.
The company's strategy is to maintain good working relationships with other ports, to take advantage of the "inevitable changes in the port sector.
Chapman said that just as Tauranga has now reached into the South Island through Timaru, it is expected that other ports will be seeking to enter into working relationships with one another in order to capture regional cargo outside of their immediate catchment area.
Annabel Young, executive director of the eight-member New Zealand Shipping Federation, said unsustainable rates were "a truism accepted throughout the industry" and coastal shipping "was more fragile than people realised."
Meanwhile, diversifying business streams was paying dividends while plans for an inland port facility in Invercargill were also advancing, Rex Chapman said.
The 2015 result was "particularly pleasing because this time last year we did not predict such a good result, given the growing competitive pressure in container activity and falling commodity prices," he added.
South Port in August reported another record cargo throughput at Bluff of 2.68 million tonnes, a 5 per cent increase on 2014, which resulted in a record net profit after tax of $7.7 million, up 15 per cent on 2014.
The Bluff-based port company has diversified across container and bulk cargoes transfers, warehousing, cold storage, property and infrastructure leasing and this has been rewarded.