Latest / Best of Business / Graeme Sumner: Lyttelton Port CEO on the port's planned $821m expansion

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Graeme Sumner: Lyttelton Port CEO on the port's planned $821m expansion · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: Littleton Port Company is announced it's going ahead with the
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  Speaker 3: new wharf and container terminal. It's going to cost eight
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  Speaker 3: hundred and twenty one million dollars. It will expand annual
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  Speaker 3: birth capacity to eight hundred and fifty thou twenty foot
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  Speaker 3: equivalent units. Graham Sumner is the Littleton Port Company CEO.
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  Speaker 2: High Graham, Hi, how are you?
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  Speaker 3: I'm very well, thank you. Now why do you need this?
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  Speaker 2: Well, basically, we're running out of capacity and that's on
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  Speaker 2: two or three fronts. Really. The main one is that
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  Speaker 2: ninety two percent of the container ships being built today
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  Speaker 2: are too large for the harbor and they can't they
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  Speaker 2: can't fit in on the port. So we've run into
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  Speaker 2: this problem of the world now is expanding. These large
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  Speaker 2: container ships are getting bigger and bigger, and so we've
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  Speaker 2: got to expand with the network.
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  Speaker 3: So how much business do you reckon you're missing out
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  Speaker 3: on that you would you would have if you had
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  Speaker 3: this up and running already.
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  Speaker 2: Well that's a great question actually, because you know we
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  Speaker 2: peaked at five hundred thousand containers about four years ago
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  Speaker 2: and at the moment we're doing around four hundred and
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  Speaker 2: twenty five four hundred and thirty thousand containers. There's no
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  Speaker 2: doubt that we've lost business in terms of transhipments and
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  Speaker 2: you know, others disappearing to other ports where we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: some of that loss as far as Melbourne where they're
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  Speaker 2: transhipping through Australia. So there's definitely some competitive positioning there.
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  Speaker 2: But also we've got to grow as a result of
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  Speaker 2: increased demand from our customers, increasing demand from exporters in particular.
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  Speaker 3: What is largely coming into you guys.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so on the import side we get an enormous
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  Speaker 2: amount of farm inports. Obviously we've benefited extremely well from
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  Speaker 2: the rural economy, but of course Cannabury itself is growing
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  Speaker 2: as the population, and imports is just really a factor
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  Speaker 2: of that as well. You know, you've got to bring
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  Speaker 2: in building materials and all the things that people consume.
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  Speaker 2: Ninety eight percent of that comes through seaports. So we're
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  Speaker 2: lucky in the sense that we're both balanced in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the import growth demand because of those population factors,
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  Speaker 2: and also the export growth demand because obviously our farmers
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  Speaker 2: our producers are doing well.
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  Speaker 3: Now, what is this about the soft starts that you
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  Speaker 3: warn the dolphins with? How does that work?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, as you know, we operate within a dolphin sanctuary,
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  Speaker 2: so we do have some constraints around how we construct
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  Speaker 2: the berth. And we've been operating under these conditions previously
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  Speaker 2: because we have built previous berths for some of the conditions.
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  Speaker 2: And so that involves some innovative technology around things like
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  Speaker 2: bubble curtains, which basically reduce the amount of sound that
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  Speaker 2: goes out and spreads out through the harbor when we're
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  Speaker 2: doing the heavy piling and generating that really hit bubble
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  Speaker 2: bubble curtains, like in the water you put bubble curt
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  Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, that's right. But it's really look,
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  Speaker 2: it's good tech and it basically produces the sound. So
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  Speaker 2: it means that we can operate with dolphins much closer
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  Speaker 2: to the construction area than we otherwise would.
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  Speaker 3: Brilliant. And while you're at it, I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 3: productivity is the big thing in this country. We talk
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  Speaker 3: about a lot. So are you going to be doing
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  Speaker 3: automating and all that kind of stuff as well?
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  Speaker 2: Well, Well, we are, I mean, you know that you're right.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a been a big bug bear of
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  Speaker 2: a lot of people. Has no productivity. But we've got
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  Speaker 2: to increase our through port. We've got to reduce our
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  Speaker 2: unit costs. You know, there's I think a strong argument
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  Speaker 2: to be made that we haven't invested enough in capital
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  Speaker 2: equipment in order to drive down costs and you know,
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  Speaker 2: create better options for customers. So it is all about that.
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  Speaker 2: Having said that, you know, the way we can do
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  Speaker 2: that is is we can expand the port. We we
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  Speaker 2: don't expect employ unemployment or if you like. You know,
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  Speaker 2: there's not going to be any redundancies, but what we
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  Speaker 2: do expect is we'll see a far greater level of
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  Speaker 2: throughput per employee.
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  Speaker 3: Brilliant. Hey Graham, as always, thank you very much for
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  Speaker 3: having a chat to us, and best of luck with that.
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  Speaker 3: That's Graham Sumner, Littleton Port Company, CEO.
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