South-west Sydney's largest freight transport company plans to buy land near Port Kembla's Outer Harbour by Christmas, setting up a terminal for goods from ships, trains and trucks that will employ up to 100 people within a few years.
The Mercury can reveal the rapidly expanding Macarthur Intermodal Shipping Terminal (MIST) sees Port Kembla as its future and is preparing to buy its way to a prime position despite the global financial crisis.
Initially, the company's intermodal terminal at Port Kembla would deal mainly with Riverina bulk imports and exports.
But MIST group general manager Steve Heraghty said once container-handling facilities on the Outer Harbour were developed, 20,000 containers could pass through a year.
"When we get the right site for us we will then be building a terminal and we'd certainly like to have purchased something prior to Christmas this year," Mr Heraghty said.
"We're committed to the area.
"We'd be looking at 15 employees right away and then something between 75 and 100 people ... and that's being a little bit conservative, I believe."
With the expanding Port Kembla closer to western Sydney than Port Botany, it has now become a more efficient option for businesses there. Port Corporation chief executive Dom Figliomeni said interest in the Outer Harbour from these potential businesses had been strong.
The MIST Port Kembla site would be at least 15ha and would connect by rail with other MIST facilities in Wagga Wagga and Minto, near Campbelltown.
Mr Heraghty's company has some 65 prime movers, 135 trailers, 27 locomotives, 260 wagons and a rail maintenance centre at Maldon.
It has trains running "all day, every day" across NSW. The company transports 45,000 containers a year, most by train between Minto and Port Botany in Sydney. It hopes to eventually increase that to 327,000 containers.
The opportunities for Port Kembla would be even greater if the Maldon-Dombarton rail link were built, Mr Heraghty said, indicating all container movements to Port Botany were negotiable.
"It's all on the table," Mr Heraghty said.
"Once the Outer Harbour is developed into a container port then, well, here we come."
Of particular relevance is a recently signed deal to transport 260,000 tonnes of wheat by train from the new ABB malt house at Minto to Port Botany.
"The wheat will soon start by going to Sydney, but the Dombarton line opening would then give the alternate to go down to Port Kembla," Mr Heraghty said.
"I just think Port Kembla becomes as important as Sydney as Sydney develops, because it just links in. You get in a helicopter and you see this just makes sense."
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter