Lots and lots of logs

22 December 2011

MORE RECORDS TUMBLE AT EASTLAND PORT

A resurgent log market, a lull in shipping and increased harvest made for a record-breaking moment at Eastland Port over the weekend.

The 107,000 tonnes on the port last weekend broke the previous record by more than 20,000 tonnes.

A big bonus of the peak in storage was the chance to utilise the newly-asphalted two-and-a-half hectares to its full capacity, which was recently completed as stage one of the group’s biggest-ever capital investment project.

Eastland Port project development manager Marty Bayley says they hadn’t fully  anticipated the volume gains the asphalting project would create. “It is certainly much bigger than we had anticipated,” he says.

Stage two, which will see the second third of the main yard asphalted, is expected to start on January 9.

The $15 million project will be completed in the next year-and-a-half, and is part of the port’s ongoing development plan focusing on delivering fit-for-purpose infrastructure for the region’s burgeoning forestry industry.

As well as the record storage on port, there were also 20,000 tons of logs stored at the port’s newly-commissioned “inland port” at Matawhero. The facility is now completely self-sufficient with its own weighbridge, log scaling operation and trailer gantry facilities, which will contribute significantly to reducing truck movements through the city.

Eastland Port is on target to record a record-breaking year, with more than 1.6 million tonnes expected to be exported in the current financial year.

Logs, logs and more logs.....looking like match sticks, more than 107,000 tonnes of logs wait to be exported from Eastland Port.

Photograph by Andrew Costello