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How Sydney is shipping out traffic
Back in the Seventies, just before the arrival in Australia of the first purpose-built containership, what was then the new P&O-led shipping line, Overseas Containers Ltd (OCL) parked a 20ft container on the pavement in Sydney’s Circular Quay and had two executives explain to unknowing passers-by just what the coming container revolution was all about.
These days few Sydneysiders would be so unfamiliar with the ubiquitous ISO containers. Thousands of them travel on the city’s roads everyday.
But now more than 30 years after OCL’s containership Encounter Bay first moored in the harbour, the Port of Sydney is saying goodbye to all its containerships in a bid to reduce traffic congestion. Many of the vessels are being loaded and unloaded south of the old port at Botany Bay while some are being directed even further south, 80km away to Port Kembla.
Port Kembla—more famous for its coal and steel shipments—is to take containerships from Sydney’s Glebe Island and White Bay terminals—the container bases that started the freight handling revolution.
Most importantly, Port Kembla is also to become the NSW gateway for all the State’s imported cars. Roll-on roll-off ships, like Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s Tarago pictured above, will be delivering some 270,000 cars through Port Kembla next year rising to an expected 295,000 in 2011–12.
While moving so much freight out of Sydney will save the city millions of dollars in reduced traffic congestion, it will create a major new industry for Port Kembla and the nearby city of Wollongong. The new $170 million port facility will handle an extra 400 ships a year and generate about $400 million in extra economic activity.
