Te Wai Pounamu / South Island

In Southland, there are some areas in production now, but the idea was to do conversions of dairy as the industry grows.

That would be great. Thinking about it, dairy and oat growing land probably share a lot in common so it makes sense to do that conversion.

Southland needs more income - growing the port would help achieve that?

This is the politics bit. The company wanting to set up an oat milk factory would look at what they need. They would approach the port to ask about this, the port would approach the council about expanding, the council may approach central government about support. Talks go round and round, but if they are going nowhere then they may end up going to a backup option like building the plant in Canterbury. It's hard to know what made them change their mind, though if you're local there may be rumours.

Not if it is transported OS.

The cost of shipping from Christchurch to Europe instead of Bluff to Europe is probably minimally different, but the cost of trucking from Southland to Christchurch port vs Canterbury to Christchurch port may well be a big difference (remembering one truck can take a tiny fraction of what a ship can, and each truck needs a driver, and each driver needs breaks if the trip is long). The shipping cost per litre may well be less than the cost to ship it to the other side of the world.

If I hear the reasoning, I’ll post back here.

That would be great, I'd be interested to know.