POAL Container Terminal Update – Road and Rail Terminal Operations Status

Dear Valued Client,

Please see below received from Ports of Auckland last night:

It is with deep sadness that we confirm that a member of Ports of Auckland staff was fatally injured last night, while working on a ship at Fergusson Terminal.

We are doing everything we can to support his family, those who were on shift at the time of the incident and our wider team. Victim support and EAP are on site.

Work stopped immediately and a full investigation is underway which we expect will be completed sometime later today. Until then we are unable to resume cargo operations.

At this stage, we hope to recommence Terminal operations from tomorrow morning Monday 31 August, however the start-up will be later than 0700 hours as we need to brief the teams and ensure that they are all supported.

There will be a small number of straddles operating this evening to help manage urgent moves and our Gate Ops team will reach out to Carriers with bookings this evening to help manage any urgent containers. We have not been able to move any rail containers off Port today. Additionally, the team will work with Carriers on any VBS bookings made before 0700 Monday 31 August to times later in the day once operations are back up and running.

Note there will be some containers that have not been discharged from the affected vessel and potentially changes to other vessel schedules as we will now have lost a minimum 24 hours operating time. Please ensure to check with our Gate Ops and/or Customer Services team to validate any container information if required.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this very difficult time.

Our thoughts and prayers are with our fallen colleague and his whanau.

We will ensure to keep you updated with developments as and when they become clearer.