Delays and a $350 fee: Why a global shipping giant’s had enough of Lyttelton Port

Thursday, 27 November 2025

Cargo owners warn delays and surcharges at Lyttelton are already forcing costly workarounds and putting pressure on cash flow.

A global shipping giant has run out of patience with delays at Lyttelton, imposing a new congestion fee on every container it moves through the port and blaming slow operations for holding up ships and cargo.

From early December, Maersk will add US$200 (NZ$350) to each container that starts or finishes its journey at Lyttelton.

Industry experts say it is unusual for a shipping line to slap a congestion fee on a New Zealand port.

The fee applies to all Maersk exports, imports and coastal containers moving between Lyttelton and other New Zealand ports, and will stay in place until further notice.

The extra charge will be paid by the owners of the goods in those containers, not the port.

Unions blame a messy restructure and the loss of experienced foremen for the slowdown, while shipping experts say Lyttelton also needs a deeper lift in productivity through automation, the kind of expensive, long-term change that can take years to deliver.

The New Zealand Cargo Owners Council (NZCOC) said delays at Lyttelton are already forcing some big shippers into costly workarounds, with mounting costs and growing risks for manufacturers relying on imports.

Lyttelton Port is owned by the Christchurch City Council through its investment arm, Christchurch City Holdings Ltd, meaning ratepayers ultimately own the port.

It handled more than 430,000 containers last year, carrying about $7.5 billion of exports and $6.4b of imports through the harbour.

Even if only part of that trade is on Maersk ships, the surcharge could still run into many millions of dollars a year in extra freight costs for South Island businesses if it stays on.

Lyttelton Port Company faces questions over whether its terminal restructure and “transition” have come at the expense of service for South Island businesses.

Maersk did not respond to questions from The Press before deadline.

Slow port, lost time for ships

New Zealand Shipping Federation executive director John Harbord said Maersk’s move was best understood as a price on lost time at an under-performing terminal.

He said Lyttelton shifted far fewer containers per crane per hour than many other ports in New Zealand and overseas.

“I wouldn’t put an exact number on it, but you’re talking something like high teens an hour,” he said. “That’s about half of what you’d want before you’d call it a really productive port.”

Shipping experts say Maersk’s congestion fee is a rare move that signals deeper concerns about Lyttelton’s productivity and reliability.

When ships spend longer at Lyttelton, Harbord said, operators lose time they could otherwise spend sailing to the next port and carrying more paying cargo.

“What that means for a shipping line is you burn extra time just sitting at Lyttelton waiting to load and unload. That’s time you could have spent sailing and earning revenue. The congestion fee is really Maersk putting a price on that delay.”

Cargo owners, not the port, pick up the bill

Harbord said the charge would not fall on the port.

“It’s the owners of the cargo in the containers who will pay.

“This will land on importers and exporters, and then they could pass the cost on to the end consumer.”

Lyttelton Port Company chief executive Graeme Sumner, whose council-owned port is under pressure over delays and a new congestion fee.

He said that could include everything from fertiliser, meat and dairy ingredients to containers of electronics and other retail stock heading into Christchurch in the lead-up to Christmas.

An extra US$200 per container was not small in the context of normal freight rates, he said. If moving a container typically cost a bit over US$2000, a congestion fee was about a 5% to 10% increase in the cost of the sea leg.

For a firm shipping 40 or 50 boxes a month on Maersk, that could quickly become a six-figure annual hit.

Big cargo owners warn of mounting risks

NZCOC chairperson Brent Falvey said members were already feeling the effects of the situation at Lyttelton.

Lyttelton is the main container gateway for the South Island, handling billions of dollars of exports and imports each year.

“Members are experiencing delays and implementing work arounds as best they can.”

Some council members are likely to face serious strain on their cash flow, Falvey said.

“We definitely want to see the situation resolved as soon as possible as there is mounting cost and the risk to business is increasing, including manufacturing risk with delays on imports.”

Falvey said the issue was bigger than Lyttelton, warning that weak links between ports, rail, road and depots, plus rising costs, are already undermining the competitiveness of New Zealand’s exports and pushing up the price of imports.

Surcharge signals a longer-term problem

Harbord described congestion surcharges of this kind as “reasonably uncommon”.

“I don’t remember hearing about a shipping line imposing a congestion fee in the last several years.

Port workers say a messy restructure and the loss of experienced foremen have contributed to the slowdown at Lyttelton’s container terminal.

“If they thought this was only going to last a month, they probably wouldn’t bother – they’d just swallow it. The fact they’ve gone ahead suggests they see this as a longer-term issue.”

Harbord described the surcharge as “a handbrake of sorts” rather than a sudden shock to the South Island economy.

“Lyttelton is the gateway to the South Island. If the main port for Canterbury and the wider South Island is slow, that extra time and cost moving freight will hold things back, even if it’s not dramatic on its own.”

He said New Zealand ports in general tended to rank poorly on global productivity measures, and Lyttelton was not alone in facing pressure to modernise.

“Fundamentally, if you want to lift your productivity, you have to automate more processes, and that’s really expensive to do.”

Port says a transition is to blame

The fee comes in just as the port is changing how its container terminal is run, and it says service has slipped during that change.

It is now hiring and training more staff in an effort to get services back on track.

In response to questions from The Press, Lyttelton Port Company did not answer specific queries and instead pointed to a notice it had already sent to customers.

In that notice, the port said the container terminal was in the middle of a change in how it is run and who is in charge.

The change required it to attract and train additional staff.

“We acknowledge that our service levels for customers recently have not met expectations,” chief customer and supply chain officer Simon Munt wrote.

The company said it has had more staff available in recent weeks and hopes to take on more ship calls, with the aim of getting back to its normal schedule as soon as possible.