About 6 Wharf

The  wharf is 350 metres long and 34 metres wide, allowing us to service more and larger vessels.

It is located within the port’s existing boundary on the northern face of the container terminal to take advantage of the existing breakwater.

Stage one dredging started in mid-2020.

So ships can use 6 Wharf we needed to create a berth pocket to a depth of 13.0 metres and create a slope underneath the wharf where the shore protection is placed. We also needed to extend the swinging basin (where ships turn), dredge parts of the inner harbour and deepen the shipping channel closest to the port 12.5 metres deep.

This stage involved dredging and disposing approximately 1.3 million cubic metres of dredged material.

Stages two to five dredging was not required while we built 6 Wharf and will only take place as required. This part of the project will allow the port to handle even larger ships as ship drafts continue to increase (we’ve secured resource consents for 35 years).

This involves extending the channel and increasing its depth by 0.5 metre each stage to a maximum depth of 14.5 metres. Each stage will take up to nine weeks and involve dredging and disposing a similar volume of material; the overall total being around 3.2 million cubic metres.

Napier Port secured resource consents to deposit and dispose of dredged material for stage one of the project at a site that is 5 kilometres to the east of the port.

The consultation and scientific work prior to the project commencement confirmed that this was the best disposal site to minimise any impact from dredging and disposal. At 20 to 23 metres deep, material disposed here had less chance of being disturbed by adverse weather events. The prevailing south-directed current also takes sediment away from Pania Reef, and minimised the chances of disturbing marine life and ecology.

Prior to applying for resource consents we undertook extensive studies and modelling to understand the ecology of Pania Reef.

The reef is a special conservation area and a site of significance to mana whenua as the embodiment of Pania, a prominent ancestor.

It’s also an important spot for kai moana and the fishing community.

We designed the dredging project to preserve the mauri of the reef and ensure sediment plume created by planned dredging wouldn’t threaten the reef and ecology. W also undertook environmental monitoring, which helped to guide our dredging operations.

Napier Port has a number of permanent monitoring buoys anchored in the surrounding harbour to guide our daily operations.

Before we applied for resource consents we put in additional buoys to gather data about tides, wave heights, currents, turbidity (clarity) of the water and underwater noise.

The wave buoy (G), turbidity buoys (E & F) and weather station (H) remained in place and continued to track conditions, such as water clarity in real-time, and ensure our planned dredging was not impacting the existing ecology of Pania Reef.

You can check out our live environmental monitoring dashboard here.

We’ve built an on-port penguin sanctuary to protect the kororā or little blue penguins that nest in and around the sea walls at Napier Port.

We undertook research to understand and protect the species and their habitat and prepared an Avian Management Plan with the Department of Conservation, Mana Whenua and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council to ensure we protected the kororā and other birdlife during construction.

You can read more about the on-port penguin sanctuary here.