Oakajee Deep Water Port, Industrial Estate and Murchison Rail Link

Proponents: The Oakajee port and Murchison rail link will be developed largely by the private sector. The Federal government has set aside $339 million and the State has matched this to fund common user infrastructure of the port’s outer harbour. Landcorp (the WA State Government’s land development arm) is the proponent for the industrial estate.

Value: Construction of the deep water port and rail link alone is estimated to cost around $4 billion, dependent on final designs.

Location: Oakajee is located approximately 20km north of Geraldton in Western Australia’s Mid West. It is roughly bordered by the Buller River to the south, Coronation Beach road to the north and the Moresby Ranges to the east.

Description: Oakajee has been identified for approximately 30 years as a potential site for a deep water port (dwp) and industrial estate. Successive studies have confirmed this view. The estate and a surrounding buffer zone has been acquired by the State Government as part of its long term strategic planning process.

The industrial estate comprises approximately 6,500 hectares of land owned by the WA State Government of which 1,100 hectares is zoned for heavy industrial and 200 hectares is zoned for support industries. The property is currently farmed and awaits servicing (power, water, gas etc).

The heavy gauge railway will link the resource rich Murchison (particularly iron ore) with the Oakajee estate and dwp, and will have the potential to develop a connection to proposed major iron ore mines east of Morawa and Perenjori.

On 20^th March 2009, the Premier of WA announced the formal signing of a Development Agreement between OPR and the State Government. This gives OPR the legal right to build a deep water port at Oakajee and a rail link to the Mid West’s mineral resources. OPR and the State Government will now negotiate a more detailed Implementation Agreement.

Final project go ahead is dependent on OPR securing project finance which will require confirmation of the project’s feasibility. OPR plans to complete is bankable feasibility study by March 2010.

Assuming the BFS is positive, funding is secured and all necessary approvals are granted in a timely manner, construction of the port could commence in 2010-11 with exports commencing in 2013-14.