Terminal At Whangarei?

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31364, 9 May 1967, Page 3

Terminal At Whangarei?

(N.Z. Press Association) WHANGAREI, May 8.

A national container terminal could be established at Marsden Point, Whangarei, at a fraction of the cost that would be incurred at any other port in New Zealand, and the greater part of this could be done without resorting to loan money, claims a report on container use prepared by the Northland Harbour Board.

The board’s report says that in the national interest a container terminal be established soon and because of low capital cost and the present complete harbour facilities it should be established at Marsden Point. “A consideration of all relevant factors makes the selection of Marsden Point as the national container terminal logical and, indeed, inevitable,” the report says. Neither the population nor the trade of New Zealand would support more than one

national container port during the next 50 years, the report says. Experience had shown that the basic requirements of a

national container terminal port were similar to those of an oil refinery. Overseas experience has demonstrated that the selection of a port already fully developed in a metropolitan area is impracticable, the report says. “Not one existing major New Zealand port has 50ft depth of continuous navigable water and each already had transport problems. “On 1965 figures the national container port will be required to handle 290,000 containers a year. This makes essential a large reserve of marshalling and storage area. “The economics of the mammoth ship make inevitable a trend towards 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000-ton tankers and the same trend must appear in container ships which, in effect, are bulk carriers,” the report says.

“Internal costs of transporting containers can be held, if not substantially reduced, if rail, road and water transport are integrated by the general acceptance of the rolling method of moving cargo,” the report says.