In the last week of June 2022, Lyttelton Port Company exchanged its 500,000th TEU for Financial Year 2022, the first time the half-million TEU mark has been broken at LPC.
The 500,000th TEU was exchanged on the CV Bernhard Schulte in the early hours of 29 June. A regular visitor to Lyttelton, she was built in 2010, is 264m long and carries up to 4,600 TEU.
LPC GM Container Operations Simon Munt said he wanted to thank all LPC staff for playing their part in this achievement.
“Our continued growth is only possible with everyone’s hard work, dedication and innovation from the teams at Lyttelton Port, across to our inland ports, CityDepot and MidlandPort, as well as our customers,” he said.
“This landmark is important in signalling to others that we are no longer a small, 100,000 TEU-a-year port. This also links into the ongoing growth with the new coastal services recently announced. We have hit this large milestone, and are showing no signs of slowing down.
“Facilitating the trade of containers is not only a crucial part of our success as a business, but the success of the economy of the Canterbury region and the South Island,” Simon said.
LPC has invested heavily in infrastructure and plant to handle the increase. Currently an $85 million expansion of the Container Terminal on the Te Awaparahi Bay reclamation is underway, which will lift the capacity of the Terminal from 500,000 TEU to 620,000 by the end of this year.
This comes on top of the doubling of rail capacity through the investment in a new, second rail siding, the purchase of a fleet of Noel 1 over 3 straddles, and the construction of reefer towers.
These developments all help support the growth through the port as LPC welcomed several new shipping services and lines this year.
Since 1973, LPC has exchanged more than seven million TEU, growing in the last 50 years from just 1000 TEU annually to 503,000 TEU this year.