CentrePort Wellington (CentrePort) provides land and sea infrastructure and manages port facilities in Wellington Harbour in New Zealand. The company is the successor to the Wellington Harbour Board, and was formed as one of the outcomes of the 1989 local government reforms. This article is about both the company and the port.
CentrePort manages cargo passing through the port of Wellington. This includes containers, logs, vehicles and other bulk cargo. Fuel imports are managed at wharves at Seaview and Miramar. The company leases wharf facilities to the Interislander and StraitNZ ferry services which operate across Cook Strait between Wellington and Picton in the South Island, and it provides support for cruise ships that visit Wellington each year.
When the new port company was formed, it owned approximately of Wellington waterfront property including wharves. The remainder of the Wellington waterfront area from Shed 21 to Clyde Quay Wharf, including all the buildings, was transferred to Wellington City Council. CentrePort is local government-owned. As of 2023, the shareholdings in the company are Greater Wellington Regional Council (77%), and Horizons Regional Council (23%).
Background
The Wellington Harbour Board was disestablished after the passing of the Port Companies Act 1988 and the Local Government Act 1989, as part of the 1989 local government reforms. Operational port assets were transferred to a new company called Port of Wellington in 1989. Ownership of the Port of Wellington company was vested in Greater Wellington Regional Council and Horizons Regional Council. When the port company was formed, it owned approximately of Wellington waterfront property including wharves. The remainder of the Wellington waterfront area, from Shed 21 to Clyde Quay Wharf, including all the buildings, was transferred to Wellington City Council.
In 1989, over 50% of business through the port was with the European Economic Community and Japan. Australia, North America and other parts of Asia also accounted for a large portion of the trade through Port of Wellington. Port of Wellington changed its name to Port Wellington in 1997 and then to CentrePort in May 1999, to emphasise the fact that the port is in the centre of New Zealand and able to serve a large geographical area.
In July 1999, CentrePort announced that it would spend up to $50 million in a ten-year plan to improve facilities on of its land between Waterloo Quay, opposite Wellington railway station, and the Kaiwharawhara reclamation. This would include moving port offices and log storage facilities, and building a new wharf at Kaiwharawhara, new sheds and a fishing jetty. The company stated that it would lease out of underused land along Waterloo Quay for a hotel, apartments or other commercial activities. This evolved into the Harbour Quays project, launched in July 2005.
As of 2023, the shareholdings in CentrePort are Greater Wellington Regional Council (77%), and Horizons Regional Council (23%). In 2024, as part of its long-term plan process, Greater Wellington Regional Council undertook public consultation on a proposal to purchase the remaining shares of CentrePort, if they became available.
Harbour Quays CentrePort's Harbour Quays project aimed at developing CentrePort's land along Waterloo Quay, between Bunny St and the Sky Stadium, into a business park with office buildings, retail and recreational spaces. CentrePort said there was space for up to 12 multi-storey buildings to house 4,000 workers. A group of Wellington business and property owners known as Vibrant Wellington opposed the Harbour Quays project, fearing that it would take thousands of workers out of the city centre. Spokesman Ian Cassels did acknowledge that Harbour Quays "could be positive and really contribute to Wellington's future if it manages to adopt some of those mixed-use alternatives". The first new building in the project was Statistics House, completed in 2005. BNZ Harbour Quays was built in 2009, and the Customhouse was built in 2010.
Operations CentrePort manages cargo passing through the port of Wellington. This includes containers, logs, vehicles and other bulk cargo. Fuel imports are managed at wharves at Seaview and Miramar. The company leases wharf facilities to the Interislander and StraitNZ ferry services which operate across Cook Strait between Wellington and Picton in the South Island, and it provides support for cruise ships that visit Wellington each year.
Containers
The container terminal was developed by Wellington Harbour Board in the early 1970s, and by 1979 there were three container cranes in service. In 2006, two new container cranes were commissioned, to replace the three cranes originally installed in the 1970s. The new cranes have greater capacity because they are twin-lift, capable of lifting two containers at a time. In 2011, the last of the original three container cranes was removed from service.
Container operations at CentrePort were severely disrupted by the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. There was damage to wharves and facilities and the large container cranes were disabled for 10 months. While the cranes were out of action, only ships with their own cranes on board could unload containers at CentrePort. Following the completion of repairs to the earthquake damage to the Thorndon container wharf in 2022, the operational length of the wharf was increased from 125m to 262m.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted trade and led to a world-wide shortage of containers. Internationally, trade decreased and containers were stuck at ports around the world.
Increasingly larger container ships have been introduced internationally over the last 20 years. The proportion of ships of 4,000–5,999 TEU (twenty-foot-equivalent unit containers) arriving in New Zealand almost doubled from 34% to 62% between 2014 and 2020. By 2020, approximately 50% of containers moved through CentrePort were on cargo ships of 4,000 or more TEU. In 2023, CentrePort ranked seventh out of eleven container ports in New Zealand, by container TEU throughput.
Bulk cargo
The port handles a diverse range of bulk materials including vehicles, petroleum, logs, cement and other bulk cargo. In 2021, the port handled 2.6 million tonnes of bulk cargo, ranking sixth by volume amongst New Zealand ports.
The volume of logs handled by CentrePort almost doubled in the five years between 2011 and 2016. In 2016 an existing rail hub at Waingawa in the Wairarapa was expanded for log transportation. The rail hub results from a collaboration between CentrePort, Forest Enterprises Limited, Farman Turkington Forestry and KiwiRail. It enables companies to send logs to CentrePort by rail rather than road, which has benefits for profitability, traffic and the environment. Logs can also be stored at the hub, relieving pressure on space at CentrePort.
In 2021, rail transport to the port carried 29% of bulk cargo exports.
Cruise ships In the 1996/97 summer season, nine cruise ships visited Wellington. The following season there were 20 visits, and by the 2022/23 season there were over 100 visits annually, with some ships returning several times during the season. Cruise ships berthed at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in the 1990s, but as ships got bigger the terminal became unsuitable since it could only handle vessels up to 240m long. From the late 1990s, cruise ships berthed at either Queens Wharf or Aotea Quay. In 2009 Wellington City Council built a sheltered walkway along the one-kilometre stretch of road between the cruise ship base at Aotea Quay and Wellington Railway Station so that cruise ship passengers could walk to the city if they wished. CentrePort changed the layout of its site after the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake. Cruise ships berthed at Aotea Quay in the same area as cargo ships, which meant that for safety reasons cruise passengers are no longer allowed to walk through the wharf area to the city. Cruise ships stopped visiting for three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, returning in the 2022/23 season. In 2023, CentrePort ranked third highest port by number of cruise ship visits, with 89 ships calling.
Tugs
In 1968 the passenger ferry Wahine ran aground at the entrance to Wellington Harbour and 51 people died on the day, with two more passengers dying later from their injuries. The Union Steam Ship Company's tug Tapuhi was not strong enough to assist the Wahine. Responding to the disaster, the Harbour Board bought new, bigger tugs: Kupe, which went into service in 1971, Toia (1972) and Ngahue (1977). CentrePort sold Kupe in 2009, and Toia and Ngahue in 2014. These were replaced by Tiaki and Tapuhi. Tiaki and Tapuhi have a stronger bollard pull than the previous tugs, and are designed to operate with large cruise ships and container ships within the harbour. They are acknowledged to be not as suited to salvage work or work in open water as the previous tugs. In 2023 there were two instances of large ships drifting without power in Cook Strait, and in both cases CentrePort's tugs were not suited to assist them effectively. This has raised concerns that another Wahine disaster could happen if a ship gets into trouble outside the harbour. After a third incident in November 2023, when a cargo ship had engine trouble off Cape Palliser and had to be towed to Wellington Harbour by a tug working on a project within the harbour, Wellington's harbour master stated that "we are relying on luck to avoid shipping incidents around the coast".
In June 2024, the government announced that it would allocate $600,000 for a study looking into the feasibility of providing an ocean-going tug for Cook Strait. The decision was welcomed by Wellington Regional Council and Marlborough District Council.
Wharves
As of 2023, there are 20 wharves situated around Wellington Harbour. This includes large commercial wharves in the inner harbour and port area, smaller wharves in seaside suburbs and the fuel wharves at Seaview and Evans Bay. The first wharves were built from 1840 by newly arrived European settlers, to enable them to move goods from ship to shore. The first publicly owned wharf built in Wellington Harbour was Queens Wharf, completed in 1862. In 1880 the Wellington Harbour Board was created and took control of most wharves in the harbour until its disestablishment in the 1989 New Zealand local government reforms.
CentrePort owns and operates the commercial wharves in the inner harbour area and the fuel wharves at Seaview and Evans Bay. Other wharves around the harbour are owned by local councils.
Seaview wharf CentrePort owns and maintains a wharf at Seaview that serves a fuel terminal. The Seaview fuel terminal is the main point of supply for liquid fuels for the lower North Island, and is also a backup point of supply for other parts of the North Island. The landward end of the wharf is at Point Howard and it is approximately long. Fuel pipelines along the wharf connect with bulk fuel storage facilities in Seaview. The fuel terminal handles approximately one million tonnes of fuel annually.
Planning for the construction of the existing fuel terminal wharf began in the mid-1960s, with empowering legislation introduced in 1967. Tenders were called for the construction of the oil loading arms on the new wharf in 1973. In 2001, the wharf was equipped with an impressed current cathodic protection scheme to help prolong its life. The wharf was damaged in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, but was able to continue operating. In 2021 a $60m project commenced to improve the earthquake resistance of the wharf.
Burnham wharf