Fergusson Terminal Operations Recommencement

Please see the below update from Ports of Auckland

To all our customers

We thank you for your ongoing support and patience as operations slowly resume at Fergusson Container Terminal after the straddle carrier accident during the earlier hours of Monday 27^th August 2018.

We appreciate that from the outside looking in, it will be difficult to reconcile how such an event can have a significant impact on time to restart operations.

Firstly, our Stevedoring colleague who was involved in the accident has suffered severe injuries and remains in a critical condition in hospital. He is supported by close whanau and friends and the Port is doing all it can to help support them and his fellow co-workers for what is a traumatic event.

Secondly, we have had to go through a detailed and fluid process to ensure we can safely restart operations, which has included an investigation with Work Safe NZ and the Police (and the investigation will continue), the removal of the machine and then a staged restart to operations including a considerable amount of counselling and support to staff who are returning to work.

To enable a safe restart we have had all of the straddles surveyed by CVIU heavy vehicle inspectors and our engineering maintenance and repair records audited, no mean feat for 30+ machines.

We began limited R&D operations on Tuesday evening at 2300 hours enabling us to start delivering and re-handling containers in the yard and from 0700 Wednesday commenced crane operations with one crane, then going to 2 cranes from 1900 hours Wednesday. This morning at 0700 hours we had the majority of the day time workforce returning to work and have gone through the same process of engagement and reintegration back into operations. This has enabled us to commence more intensive ship side operations with 4 cranes and building the gate road operations.

We are confident that operations will continue to build in momentum over the coming days but do have a line-up of vessels due and will need to manage staff fatigue very carefully to ensure we continue operations and staff are well looked after.

To manage the demand we are prioritising through the road grid any import containers that are landed and cleared and will manage the receipt of export laden containers based on vessel priorities. This means that our Gate ops team will be manually managing bookings as opposed to the normal slot drops that we would typically administer through VBS. In terms of import picks ups there is a priority to remove laden hazardous containers and active reefer containers. We are waiving any demurrage on affected vessels and this is clearly identified with the last free days advertised on our website until such time that operations are brought back to normality. The vessel berth windows have been suspended until further notice and we will manage resumption of this with the Lines directly once we are confident that again operations are brought back to a sustainable level.

Again, thank you for your support and patience. We will endeavour to keep you regularly updated, however if you have any queries please liaise with our Customer Services team.

Craig Sain

General Manager Commercial Relationships

Operational information follows:

Receivals and Deliveries: Rail and Road operations have continued with bookings prioritised for immediate vessels.

Vessels: Cap Pasado has sailed, Kota Lihat is working, MSC Martina is currently alongside.

Spirit of Canterbury, MSC Aditi are due to arrive this evening.

Import Demurrage Last Free Times will be reviewed on a daily basis and updated on the Vessel Schedule on our website here.

VBS bookings continue to be managed based on the operational capacity throughout the day and night. Our Gate Ops team are working with trucking companies and managing priority bookings based on the vessel schedule. Carriers should email Drivers Assist for extraordinary booking requirements.

Empty Dehires / Empty Exports are now back to business as usual via the LINK / Empty yard.

Vessel berth windows remain suspended until further notice and this may affect cut-off and arrival times. Please refer to the Vessel Schedule here.

Please continue to discuss with your customers utilisation of the weekend VBS booking times as operations progressively come on stream.

We will update you again tomorrow at 1200 hours.

Once again, we thank everyone for their understanding and patience.

Keeping you informed!

BR International