Coast port: Point Elizabeth favoured

Press, 10 May 1980, Page 22

Coast port: Point Elizabeth favoured

Greymouth reporter A concept plan for the development of Point Elizabeth, north of Greymouth. as a deep-sea allweather port for the West Coast has been issued by the Greymouth Harbour Board. The area was inspected recently by members of the Ports Authority. The constructin of. a deep-sea port near Greymouth is just one of four proposals now under consideration by the Government. Costing studies have not been done, but it is believed that the port could be established at Port Elizabeth for about $lOO million. However, its annual cargo potential could be as much as $5 million, according to the concept drawn up by a Greymouth surveyor, Mr L. Holmes. A deep-sea berthage at Point Elizabeth has been discussed since the beginning of the century'. The new proposal is to build a breakwater of 2700 m across the front of the bay, with an entrance to the harbour between it and a northern breakwater. The last report on the possibilities of Point Elizabeth was by a British firm of consultants, Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, in 1946, but Mr Holmes described it as “very cursory,” and said that studies of depths showed an improvement since 1946. In a letter to the Minister of Energy (Mr Birch), the harbour board has said that the exporting of coal — including that from a new mine on Mount Davy — was the key to the establishment and construction of a new port. The board said that “over the last seven or gI p]i [ h o 0"!

associated with West Coast Resources, Ltd, in various proposals to export Mount Davy coal. “In all our discussions we have pressed for a direct export from a point on the West Coast, instead of by rail to Lyttelton. Rises in freight rates over the last few years have substantially altered the economics of rail transport to another port.” The Forest Service has told the board that annual totals of 50,000 tonnes of green softwood chips anc 20,000 tonnes of hard beech chips, which wer. wasted at present, “woulf probably be available fo export” if a deep-sea por was built at Point Elizabeth. The total proposed exotic estate for Westland, of 30,000 to 40,000 hec-

tares, could be tripled within tire available land resource if local export facilities existed in Westland, the Forest Service said. ’ . The board said in its letter to Mr Birch that fish, milk powder from Hokitika, meat from the export packing house at Kokiri. plywood from local factories, and bulk gravel were other likely exports. “We believe that the establishment of a deep-sea port on the Coast could revitalise the whole area, provide work, and give incentive to companies to establish new industries,” aid the board’s secretarymanager, Mr B. J. Guerin, in asking Mr Birch to have a complete survey and appraisal made of the Port Elizabeth area.