The unusual sight of three container ships alongside at the Sulphur Point Terminal on Wednesday, with another waiting at the Mount Maunganui wharf, illustrates why the port is restricting operations.

Bahia Grande under two cranes at Sulphur Point today

New Zealand's largest export port is placing restrictions on operations after becoming fully stretched by overflow business from the Auckland waterfront dispute.
'We have reached saturation point," says Port of Tauranga commercial manager Graeme Marshall.
The Port of Tauranga is unable to accept any more ships from shipping lines wanting to bypass Auckland, where union workers are entering their fourth week on strike.
Graeme warns PTL customers to expect up to eight more weeks of disruption.
Tauranga's inland MetroPort in the South Auckland industrial suburb of Southdown is working on overload, and extra notice periods for exporters delivering freight to ships have been announced.
Trains taking containers to Auckland are reduced from six a day, to five, to reduce congestion from trucks queuing to collect goods from MetroPort.
While the immediate impact of the strike is on importers who are struggling to transport their containers to Auckland from ports down the country, exporters are next warns Graeme.
Ports of Auckland's restriction of container operations to imports, which are being handled by about 50 non-union workers and management staff, is severely restricting the movement of empty containers by coastal shipping.
Empty containers are needed by exporters around the country, but PTL's MetroPort has stopped accepting them, except by special arrangement for transport by rail to Tauranga.
The Port of Tauranga cranes made a record 20,200 container movements last week compared with the normal throughput of 11,000 – 13,000 containers.
In spite of the extra business and more staff on duty, average productivity has dropped because of limits on yard space other factors such as the cancellation of trains carrying export containers from MetroPort, says Graeme.
It was down from 35.5 moves an hour per crane to 30.3, but still higher than Auckland's normal rate of about 28.