Lyttelton now to ship timber

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34146, 6 May 1976, Page 16

Lyttelton now to ship timber

Canterbury’s wind blown timber is to be exported through Lyttelton within the next few weeks.

Virtually .all wind blown timber exports have so far been channelled through Timaru but that port is not expected to be able to cope with substantially increased exports over the next six months. The Lyttelton Harbour Board announced yesterday that arrangements for the shipment of 20 million haakon dahl feet of logs had been negotiated between the board, the New Zealand Forest Service and United Stevedores Ltd. The logs will be stored in the area behind Cashin Quay’s number three berth which is being sealed for the container terminal. The area is available for lab out six months and in

that time the board expects one shipment of 4m h.d. feet to be made every month. Lyttelton has cornered some of the log export trade because of problems of storage space, adequate labour and draft restrictions at Timaru. Over the past six months Timaru has exported about 41m h.d. feet of logs but this is expected to more than double over the next six months to about 96m h.d. feet. Canterbury’s conservator of forests (Mr J. W. Levy) said yesterday that most of the timber was destined for Japan though small amounts would also go to China and Korea. The allocation of logs for Lyttelton has not been finalised, he said, and will depend a great deal on the availability of ships. Much of the timber is expected to come from plantations other than those owned by the Forest Service.