SHIPPING DELAYS Orders For Timber Lost In Sydney

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32222, 14 February 1970, Page 12

SHIPPING DELAYS Orders For Timber Lost In Sydney

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) SYDNEY. February 13. Shipping delays are causing critical shortages of some New Zealand timber and timber products in New South Wales.

Orders are being lost because merchants in Sydney cannot get adequate shipments to supply customers.

“Merchants are feeling the pinch," Mr F. Ging, the Australian representative of New Zealand Forest Products, Ltd. said today. “Users are going elsewhere when they cannot get New Zealand timber. They like and want our wood but they want it now.”

Shortages became apparent during and after the seamen's strike in New Zealand but the situation has been aggravated since by fewer sailings) than normal out of Tauranga,. the main timber export port. The reason, according to shipping sources, is problems, being experienced by the Union Steam Ship Company in crewing vessels for the Tasman run. The Kaituna and the Karatu, for example, should have sailed from Tauranga in the first week of February for t Sydney. But according to the: Union Company both ships, are still in Auckland await ’ ing crew and officers. The company has chartered an Australian ship, the Yanderra. for at least one trip l from Tauranga to Sydney, but

it is not expected to leave Australia for New Zealand, 1 until February 21. The Ngahere sailed for, Sydney last night and the, Ngapara and the Ngakuta are! down to sail on Wednesday and February 24, respectively.) But their departures will not; end the big backlog of timber) awaiting shipment. The supply position of New Zealand Douglas fir for the house framing market is reasonable. according to industry sources. But there are desperate shortages in the radiata field—shocks for apple and pear boxes and timber for cable drums, packing cases and other manufac

tured lines. Mr R. Humphries of John) Cook and Sons Pty, Ltd, today, described delays in delivery) of box shooks as extremely j serious. The company supplies) shooks for conversion into) boxes for use by hundreds of

trtutgrowers in the orange, district of New South Wales.!( “Apples and pears on the; tree won't wait for New Zea-!* land ships.” Mr Humphries )S said . “The growers will have)l to use cardboard cartons if I] boxes are not available. Once ( they use a substitute they;! probably won t return to I wooden boxes.” Three Months Behind , Mr J. B. Wyllie, managing director of a Sydney company 1 which is the master distribu- < tor for a range of New Zea- > land made finger-jointed radi- : ata products, said his firm was , three months behind on some ; orders. , He said deliveries from

New Zealand were lagging: 'badly because of shipping de- ' lays. “We got finger-jointed fascia panels going here two years ago and now they are selling particularly well," he (said. “But I quake whenever I get an order. 1 just can’t get supplies from New Zea-: land." The fascia panels, made by the Hutt Timber and Hardware Company, Ltd, of Auckland. are popular among Sydney project builders. They are in long, uniform lengths, packaged and pre-primed ready for use.