Gleam of hope for bitumen

Press, 28 August 1984, Page 12

Gleam of hope for bitumen

Taiko is the name that the Maoris gave to the black petrel. It is also the name that the Union Shipping Group gave to its new coastal tanker, although a closer analogy might be drawn with the Ancient Mariner’s albatross. Since the $3O million tanker was launched in Japan 13 weeks ago, a dispute over manning levels has prevented the Taiko from entering service around New Zealand’s coasts as planned. For a while, the Taiko remained moored in Nagasaki Bay, running up a hefty bill for mooring fees and daily running costs. Eventually, the Taiko was put to work carrying petroleum products between ports in South-East Asia. This brought the ship’s owners some revenue and sidestepped the conflict with the New Zealand maritime unions; it did not solve that conflict, nor did it sustain deliveries of petroleum products to New Zealand ports or meet the charter commitments with the oil companies for which the Taiko was built. The most significant effect of the dispute, in the South Island at least, has been the complete disruption of bitumen supplies. The ship that the Taiko is to replace, the Erne, last called at Lyttelton with bitumen supplies in May. The Erne is no longer in service on the run. In the North Island, bitumen can be moved by either road or rail from the Marsden Point oil refinery. The cost of this land transport is higher than the cost of shipping; but the option is available if necessary. The inter-island component of freight charges means that road and rail transport of bitumen is not economically justifiable for South Island destinations. At a time of the year when improving weather usually heralds an upsurge in road repair and new road construction, the South Island is almost without bitumen. The Christchurch City Council, for instance, can measure in metres the amount of road and patching work that can be done with the bitumen that it has left. Other local bodies and South Island contractors are similarly placed. Part of the difficulty is that the manning dispute on the Taiko — a demand by the unions for a crew of 41 against the owners’ view that an appropriate crew number would be 33 — has dragged on so long. More than a month ago, the Contractors’ Federation warned that road workers were in peril of being laid off. Earlier this month, the National Roads Board was told that 4000 redundancies in the road contracting industry throughout New Zealand were “distinctly possible” if bitumen supplies were

not resumed very soon. A Christchurch delegation to the Under-Secretary of Transport, Mr Jeffries, at the end of last week told him that 1500 private sector jobs would be threatened and that the Christchurch City Council’s $2 million street construction programme would have to be abandoned — with consequent lay-offs of more workers — unless the dispute is settled speedily. Even an immediate resolution of the dispute might now be too late to guarantee that lay-offs will not be necessary. Bulk storage in the South Island is so exhausted, and the demand for bitumen at this time of year is so great, that supplies are unlikely to be able to match their use on construction. This will be so for several months after the Taiko makes its first delivery. The best guess at present is that, if the dispute were solved today, it would still be the end of September before the first replenishment of South Island stocks could be made. The disruption to roading programmes will be felt for several years, because work that can no longer be completed this year will have to be put on next year’s programme, displacing other work which will stand over for the following year. Some of the effect on jobs can be softened by putting available labour, much of it seasonal, to work on other tasks. This might be an avenue open to local authorities, but it will not be an option for roading contractors who traditionally engage several hundred extra workers about this time of year. The Taiko dispute is also choking the production of condensates in Taranaki because, as well as bringing bitumen south from Marsden Point, the Taiko was intended to ferry condensate and related products north to the refinery for processing. By last evening, it seemed that agreement had been reached with one of the unions, the Seamen’s Union, and that “substantial progress” had been made towards a settlement with the Cooks’ and Stewards’ Union, and with the Marine and Power Engineers’ Union. If this progress can be translated into a firm commitment that will get the Taiko into service without further delay, some of the impending hardship can be avoided. Even then, so much damage will have been done that few people associated with the Taiko, or who have suffered as a result of the dispute, will think of this black, petrel as anything but an albatross for some months to come.