Australia’s state of Victoria will not need a second major container port until capacity at the Port of Melbourne reaches approximately 8 million TEU, which is likely to be around 2055, according to Infrastructure Victoria.
The estimate follows a request from the Special Minister of State in May 2016 for Infrastructure Victoria, an independent statutory authority, to develop independent advice on when to invest in container port capacity and whether a second container port should be located at the existing Port of Hastings, or a new Bay West location.
Infrastructure Victoria advised the government to optimise the capacity at Victoria’s existing commercial ports before any investment in a second major container port is made, adding that once the second major container port is needed, Bay West would be the preferred location for it.
“Our advice is based on the best available evidence – including new data and technical analysis which was released transparently for consultation – and considers the economic, social, environmental and urban planning benefits and impacts,” Michel Masson, Infrastructure Victoria CEO, said.
Masson said increasing capacity at the Port of Melbourne to 8 million TEU would require a holistic approach to ports planning and would require some existing trades to be relocated to Victoria’s other commercial ports.
“The Port of Hastings will be an important part of Victoria’s future commercial port network and is particularly well suited to handling automotive trade, while the Ports of Geelong and Portland could grow their existing trades and support emerging supply chains, ” Mason said.
“Once the Port of Melbourne reaches 8 million TEU, we think it makes better economic, social and urban planning sense to move some container trade to a new port at Bay West. Bay West has strong transport, land use, environmental and amenity advantages when compared to Hastings. It can initially handle overflow container capacity, but is also well suited to becoming Melbourne’s future container port in the longer term.”