The port's commercial manager Peter Brown said log volumes handled by the company were slightly ahead of the same time last year, which was a record year.
Logs are being stored atseveral sites around the upper harbour, including Ravensbourne, as forest companies take advantage of high international prices, but with one ship having just left and two more due on Thursday and Monday, the backlog should be cleaned out.
City Forests chief executive Grant Dodson said forest companies were enjoying good times for log exports, due to demand from China and also from disrupted supplies from China's traditional main log supplier, Russia.
Mr Dodson said trees ready for harvesting were in less accessible areas and the Russian Government had imposed a tariff on log exports to China which encouraged businesses to look elsewhere for wood.
Six hundred sawmills were rumoured to have relocated from the west of China to the eastern states, he said.
While log exports have boomed, Mr Dodson said New Zealand lumber mills had been squeezed by having to pay high log prices and not being able to pass it on in lumber prices.
While log prices had stayed ahead of the high exchange rate, Mr Dodson said that was not the case for lumber prices, and the situation needed to change to ensure the future of sawmillers.
