It announced an after-tax net profit of $2.29 million yesterday - a 163% increase on last year's $870,000 and still surprisingly strong when a number of one-off gains of $580,000 for the half-year are stripped out.
South Port chairman John Harrington said although the $2.29 million result carried $580,000 of one-off gains, higher levels of cargo handling and warehousing activity underpinned the "strong" first-half result.
Cargo volumes were up 2% to 1.07 million tonnes, due to increasing export cargoes and rises of imported fertiliser and stock food imports, despite reduced cargo volumes across the wharf of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter during the six months.
South Port declared an interim dividend of 4.5c per share yesterday, compared with 2.75c for the same period last year.
Mr Harrington said the trading outlook for the year and 2010 remained "unclear", due to the volatile nature of export markets, but the company was otherwise in a "sound position" to generate a "favourable" full-year result.
"There is a likelihood that harsh economic conditions will send additional ripples through the New Zealand economy," he said in a statement.
