New study of Dampier Port to be undertaken

1/8/96

Premier Richard Court says the future needs of the Dampier Port will be the focus of a new study to be undertaken for the Dampier Port Authority as part of the planning to ensure the port can adequately deal with the projected increase in cargo activity.

Mr Court, who was speaking at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Trade and Mining Expo in Karratha, said Dampier - Australia's largest tonnage port - could expect a surge of activity from new industrial development planned for the North-West region over the next 10 years.

"The surge will be triggered not only by the expansion of existing operations near the port, but also by a range of new minerals and petroleum processing projects currently on the drawing board," he said.

Mr Court said the Dampier Port Authority had appointed consultant Halpern Glick Maunsell to carry out a $74,000 strategic planning study of the port's capacity.

The company would examine the ongoing development of the port in the light of the proposed industries and produce draft recommendations by mid-October.

"Key issues that need to be addressed are the port's future configuration and the need for staged development of the shipping channels and port facilities to handle forecast increases in the volume of cargo shipped through Dampier," the Premier said.

"The study will facilitate planning for the expansion of facilities for existing port users, and additional facilities for forecast new projects.  Among the new processing projects identified as possible for the area are iron ore pellet, direct reduced iron and steel projection facilities, as well as a petrochemicals plant using gas and salt, and several power-intensive processing industries."

The Department of Resources Development (DRD) and LandCorp are already considering the setting aside of industrial land west of Karratha for this future industrial growth. 

Dampier Port has grown steadily in recent years. 

In 1994-95, 66.5 million tonnes of cargo passed through the port on 1, 473 vessels.  The bulk of the cargo was iron ore with 54.2 million tonnes exported on 514 vessels.  A total of 2.9 million tonnes of salt passed through on 103 ships, 7 million tonnes of LNG on 129 tankers, and 1.9 million tonnes of condensate on 38 ships. 

Preliminary figures show that cargo movements increased by 0.75 million tonnes in 1995-96, taking total shipping cargoes to more than 67 million tonnes.

At present, Hamersley Iron's Dampier facilities can accommodate ships of up to 150,000 dead weight tonnes (DWT) at Parker Point and 320, 000 DWT at East Intercourse Island.  Dampier Salt ships its products in vessels up to 70,000 DWT.  The Woodside joint venture partners' LNG tankers are typically 67,000 DWT.

Mr Court said the port capacity of the Pilbara region had been of keen interest to a range of Western Australia's trading customers during his recent trip to Japan and Korea.

"I was able to outline to them the steps being taken to increase port capacity in the region," he said.

"The steps now being taken show that WA is serious about ensuring it can meet export demand for its raw and processed materials for the forseeable future."

Media contacts: Colin Norman, DPA (091) 59 555

Casey Cahill (09) 222 9475