Deepwater port ‘might not be worth building’

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 4

Deepwater port ‘might not be worth building’

PA Nelson The Marlborough Harbour Board's planned deepwater port in Shakespeare Bay, next to Picton, might not be worth building, said the Nelson Harbour Board’s chief engineer, Mr Stuart Hughes, yesterday. The Marlborough board has unveiled plans to start work within 18 months to provide for the region’s projected exports, mainly timber. But Mr Hughes estimates a single deepwater berth in Shakespeare Bay would cost $5O million. If timber was to be processed rhther than exported as logs, a better option might be to send it out through Port Nelson, he said. Marlborough, faced with limited space at Picton, has been looking at a new port for years. Shakespeare Bay would allow ships of up to 150,000 tonnes to load because of the 18m depth of water greater than in Lyttelton Harbour. Last month Mr Hughes had talks with the Marlborough board’s consulting engineer, Mr Noel Duckworth, on the draft environmental assessment for Shakespeare Bay, where it owns 140 ha of

land and all the existing houses. He said the draft presented more questions than answers. The projected 1.3 million cubic metres of timber a year from Marlborough from the year 2016 would justify processing, such as a pulp and paper mill. If a development such as that went ahead in Marlborough, Nelson would be able to handle the exports without a great increase in the port’s infrastructure, mainly by building extra storage areas. Because of the deep water, development costs at Shakespeare Bay would be “colossal,” Mr Hughes said. “My guess is $5O million to put one berth in,” he said. “If the timber goes out as logs, they probably can justify it. We certainly couldn’t handle the logs here. “But if Marlborough timber is going to be further processed, I doubt the viability of the deepwater port.” He said that the deep water was also a bit of a red herring, because many of the Asian ports to which the exports would

go were much shallower, so the bigger, ships could not use them. The Marlborough Harbour Board’s general manager, Mr Mike Goulden, said that the board had been planning the deepwater port for “years and years” in the full knowledge of the Nelson board and others. Asked what that cost would be, he said the. board had given a statement of intention covering the next 50 years rather than a detailed breakdown. “I think it is very, very likely that the development in Shakespeare Bay will have achieved a significant level by certainly the turn of the century.” A need for such a development had been identified and the Marlborough forestry industry was 100 per cent behind it, Mr Gouiden said. The Ministry of Forestry’s Nelson regional manager, Mr John Handiside, said that there was likely to be more rather than less processing of timber, and processed exports were likely to be more consistently profitable. But he expected log exports would continue.