Wellington, March 9 NZPA - Port of Tauranga and would be rival terminal operator NZL Group are continuing to disagree.

NZL wants to set up a terminal at Port of Tauranga's Sulphur Point container terminal with Ports of Auckland as its customer and argues it has a historic right to do so dating back to a previous operation in 2003.

NZL director Ken Harris put out a statement today saying progress has been made in establishing the terms under which NZL could re-establish its container terminal.

"NZL's terminal re-establishment rights are clear-cut," Mr Harris said.

Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns said the parties have not made progress and the forum for resolving the issue was the High Court.

The port has consistently argued that the operations of NZL previously did not amount to a full terminal service.

"We accept they have contractual rights to set up as a marshalling contractor and we will allocate an area once we know what there operation is," Mr Cairns said.

NZL already has a marshalling operation at the port at Mount Maunganui not at the Sulphur Point container terminal.

Mr Cairns said the parties had not met since February 13.

NZL said that in 2003 it occupied a significant portion of Sulphur Point and provided a full range of services.

Mr Cairns said NZL did not own cranes, pavement areas, or wharves at Sulphur Point. These assets were owned by the port company.

NZPA WGT pjg kn