Holcim lashes out and threatens New Zealand Government for following maritime laws

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and has con­demned glob­al cement giant Holcim’s threats to use 500 trucks a month to trans­port cement on New Zea­l­and roads, rather than crew a ship with New Zea­l­and sea­farers.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says Holcim man­age­ment should stop dig­ging itself into a big­ger hole.

He says Holcim’s state­ment on 10 Decem­ber 2025 that it will com­mence plans to haul approx­im­ately 15,000 addi­tion­al tonnes of bulk cement in over 500 trucks on New Zea­l­and roads every month is not a viable logist­ics solu­tion.

“Holcim has a straight­for­ward answer to their self-inflic­ted prob­lem, which is to util­ise a New Zea­l­and-flagged and crewed ves­sel.”

Mr Find­lay says the threats from Holcim appear to be an ama­teur attempt to strong-arm the New Zea­l­and Gov­ern­ment into dis­reg­ard­ing New Zea­l­and mari­time law.

Mr Find­lay says the Mari­time Uni­on reaf­firms its strong sup­port for the decision made by Asso­ci­ate Min­is­ter of Trans­port James Mea­ger to uphold exist­ing reg­u­la­tions.

Min­is­ter Mea­ger cor­rectly declined an applic­a­tion lodged by NovaAl­goma Cement Car­ri­ers (NACC) for an author­isa­tion under Sec­tion 198(2) of the Mari­time Trans­port Act to use a for­eign-flagged and crewed ship to replace its loc­al cement car­ri­er MV Buf­falo.

Mr Find­lay says coastal ship­ping is the most effi­cient and low­est-emis­sion meth­od of bulk trans­port­a­tion, achiev­ing sig­ni­fic­antly lower emis­sions per tonne of freight moved com­pared to road.

“Holcim’s threat to jam hun­dreds of trucks onto New Zea­l­and roads through spite has des­troyed its social licence and pub­lic cred­ib­il­ity. This is a com­pany gen­er­at­ing multi-bil­lion dol­lar glob­al profits threat­en­ing envir­on­ment­al harm and sup­ply chain risk on New Zea­l­and, simply because it failed to find a loop­hole in the sys­tem.”

Mr Find­lay says New Zea­l­and industry stake­hold­ers who rely on stable and eth­ic­al sup­ply chains, par­tic­u­larly major con­struc­tion and infra­struc­ture cli­ents, should note Holcim’s beha­viour and move swiftly to its com­pet­it­ors for their cement sup­plies.

Holcim’s plan to replace the New Zea­l­and-flagged MV Buf­falo with the Panamani­an-flagged NACC Vega crewed by for­eign labour on inferi­or terms and con­di­tions was a blatant attempt to exploit for­eign sea­farers and cir­cum­vent the law through Flag of Con­veni­ence (FOC) ship­ping.

For a glob­al com­pany that pro­motes itself as a sus­tain­able, pro­gress­ive busi­ness and ‘Top Employ­er 2025’, opt­ing for a Kiwi-crewed coastal ship would be a sign of its com­mit­ment to New Zea­l­and. Instead, Holcim is act­ing like a play­ground bully, says Mr Find­lay.

“I won­der if the loc­al man­age­ment of Holcim has gone rogue, as it seems unlikely their cor­por­ate headquar­ters in Switzer­land would be impressed by this type of beha­viour.”

The Mari­time Uni­on says Holcim needs to apo­lo­gise to New Zea­l­and, accept the decision of the Gov­ern­ment to abide by the laws of New Zea­l­and, and nego­ti­ate for a New Zea­l­and crew for a coastal cement ves­sel, says Mr Find­lay.