A confident Port of Tauranga board have announced an increased half-year dividend on the strength of increasing business volumes.

'Reflecting its confidence in Port of Tauranga's prospects, the board has declared a fully imputed dividend of 22.0 cents per share - up 4.8 per cent on last year's interim dividend of 21.0 cents per share,” says chairman David Pilkington.

A drop in log exports has been off-set by other cargo at the Port of Tauranga. Photo: File.

The record date for dividend entitlements is March 6, 2015 and the payment date is March 20, 2015. Parent EBITDA (earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation) is up $0.656 million over the same period last year, demonstrating strong cash flows, adds David.

'Our balance sheet is strong with a debt/debt-plus-equity ratio of 31.4 per cent,” he says. 'The Board intends to review the capital structure in FY17 once our major capital expenditure programme is completed.”

Highlights for the half year include: Total cargo up 1.2 per cent to 10 million tonnes, container volumes up 11.9 per cent to 426,512 twenty foot equivalent container units (TEUs) and trans-shipped containers up 21.5 per cent to 71,921 TEUs.

Also featured is Maersk 'Southern Star” service's return to Tauranga, parent EBITDA up one per cent to $60.4 million and interim dividend of 22.0 cents per share up 4.8 per cent.

Revenue for the half year is $136.3 million, largely unchanged from last year's $137.1 million, with growth in container volumes and dairy and meat exports for the most part off-setting the impact of a drop in log volumes.

Reported Net Profit for the half year rose 8.2 per cent to $42.6 million from $39.3 million in the same period last year.

Underlying profit, which excludes one-off items, fell slightly to $38.5 million from $39.3 million last year. During the period, Port of Tauranga made a $4.1 million gain relating largely to the sale of a 49.9 per cent stake in Timaru Container Terminal to Kotahi.

'Port of Tauranga has delivered a strong result for the first half, despite the drop off in log volumes,” says David. 'The 2014 alliance we struck with Kotahi is already driving increased freight volumes through the port.

'We have also seen a strong increase in import volumes and we have new opportunities emerging on many fronts, particularly through our new South Island operations.”

Port of Tauranga and Kotahi struck an alliance on June 1, 2014, which will deliver up to a total of 1.8 million export TEUs to Port of Tauranga and its subsidiary Timaru Container Terminal (TCT) over the 10 years to 2024.

In return, Port of Tauranga issued shares to Kotahi and a 49.9 per cent stake in TCT.

Subsidiary and Associate income was $7.4 million for the six months, which is $0.2 million less than the corresponding period last year.

Cargo imports increased 16.8 per cent to 3.6 million tonnes compared with the same period in the prior year. Fertiliser imports grew by 19 per cent to 325,000 tonnes, while stock feed supplements grew by 31.9 per cent to 704,000 tonnes.

Other significant increases included cement (up by 61.9 per cent in volume to 93,000 tonnes) and dry chemicals (up 10.7 per cent to 75,000 tonnes).

Container numbers handled grew from 381,107 TEUs to 426,512 TEUs.

Export volumes dropped by 5.9 per cent overall to 6.4 million tonnes, largely due to a fall in log export volumes which were down 17 per cent to 2,821,000 tonnes. Port of Tauranga expects log volumes to be similar in the six months to 30 June 2015.

Ship departures have decreased from 821 to 746, due to fewer log and container vessels. Meanwhile, milk powder exports handled by the port increased 10.9 per cent as new volume agreements with Kotahi took effect. Frozen meat exports increased 42.9 per cent to 262,000 tonnes.

Kiwifruit volumes are recovering from the impact of Psa, and grew 2.9 per cent to 336,000 tonnes compared with the previous comparative period.