THE state government believes Fremantle’s peak container capacity will not be reached until at least the end of the decade, with traffic to grow as much as 140 per cent before new facilities have to be built in Cockburn Sound.
THE state government believes Fremantle’s peak container capacity will not be reached until at least the end of the decade, with traffic to grow as much as 140 per cent before new facilities have to be built in Cockburn Sound.
The move to shift between 1 million and 1.4 million 20-foot-equivalent units – the standard size for a shipping container – compared to current rates of around 560,000 containers, is expected to be met by improving port logistics, especially rail infrastructure.
Under a conservative government, Fremantle Ports has remained committed to the target set by the previous Labor administration to shift 30 per cent of container traffic to rail so as to relieve the pressure on Fremantle’s road system as the port trade more than doubles.
Last week, Transport Minister Troy Buswell announced that $53 million would be spent to extend the rail line at North Quay by 600 metres, with a similar amount of money to make improvements to the Kewdale intermodal terminal.
Mr Buswell acknowledged this is a difficult challenge due to the complexity of moving big amounts of freight through a harbour that is also a popular residential and tourism area.
For instance, a major issue to confront is the precedence that commuter trains have over rail freight in part of the infrastructure.
The challenge is also one not new to government in Western Australia.
In 2002-03, it is understood about 18,000 units were moved by rail representing about 4 per cent of the more than 431,000 units that moved in and out of the harbour.
At the time, Labor invested more than $24 million in improving the port’s rail loops in a bid to push traffic up to 30,000 units.
These days more than 60,000 containers are on rail but that represents just 11 per cent of containers, a drop from the previous financial year of 15 per cent, a drop that Mr Buswell said was due to less than expected exports of containerised wheat and lead.
Despite the difficulties in engineering such a change in the existing port, Mr Buswell said the government had handed the process of determining the shape of expanded facilities at the outer harbour at Kwinana to the WA Planning Commission to create a formal structure.
That move is, in effect, a snub to the private James Point syndicate, which won the right to develop a private port at Kwinana a decade ago. The consortium, which includes building magnate Len Buckeridge as its biggest shareholder, is claiming it is ready to go with the development of its stage one bulk handling facility.
However, it is clear that there is a battle brewing between James Point and the state because the private development group has not dropped its claim to develop a container port in its second stage.