Backers of a multi-million-dollar aquaculture precinct mooted for Esperance are hopeful of luring major seafood companies to the greenfields site.
Backers of a multi-million-dollar aquaculture precinct mooted for Esperance are hopeful of luring major seafood companies to the greenfields site on the south coast.
Under the $10 million to $40 million project, a 140-hectare area would be opened on Wylie Bay Road near Esperance as a specialised precinct for aquaculture and related industries.
That scale would make it one of Western Australia’s largest landside aquaculture parks and would unlock sorely needed space in the constrained sector.
Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation has purchased the land and is working with abalone harvesters Yumbah and ASX-listed Rare Foods Australia to gauge interest and approach investors.
The project came about through RFA and Yumbah’s abalone farm trial at the site, which was put on ice in 2022 due to escalating costs.
RFA spent about $1.4 million with Yumbah on a study to confirm the site was suitable for a 600-tonne land-based abalone farm, and would likely take a 15ha slice of the precinct should it come to fruition.
RFA corporate development executive director Brad Adams said the site's size and location should prove attractive to major seafood operations.
“It has got access to pristine quality water from the south coast, it is totally unpolluted … and the key point was that it was a large piece of land located right next to a significant city of 14,000 people,” he said.
“You just don't find large locations of coastal land suitable for aquaculture near large population centres that are of a price to acquire that is reasonable.
“We are talking proper, scalable agriculture businesses that are churning over many millions of dollars for them and providing hundreds of jobs.”
Mr Adams said yellowtail kingfish and seaweed operations were among those that could be interested in the precinct.
One sticking point, and the reason RFA pressed pause on its own abalone farm, was the need for common-user infrastructure on site.
The project proponents are understood to be looking to government and private equity to help fund the establishment of such infrastructure.
A state government spokesperson said the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development was assisting project planning.
Shire of Esperance councillors last month agreed to grant Tjaltjraak’s request for a two-year, $500,000 option to purchase the lot RFA undertook for its trial.
Shire chief executive Shane Burge said the deal would buy the proponents time to fund the project.
“They have got their designs and they have got some costings around it,” he said.
“I think really it has struggled because of the high cost escalation in construction in the last couple of years.
“We are really hopeful that project will get over the line financially and I guess that is why the shire has shown support for this project by still offering its land for that project if the project can get up.”
Shire president Ron Chambers said the option to purchase gave stakeholders land access and the ability to progress the project.
The agreement gives stakeholders a two-year window to purchase the land should they decide to go ahead with aquaculture precinct.
