NSW Ports and Patrick Terminals have commenced work on a $190 million project to double ‘on-dock’ rail infrastructure capacity at Port Botany’s Patrick Terminals - Sydney AutoStrad™, ensuring a sustainable supply chain that will meet the future trade needs of Sydney’s growing population.
The project includes investment of $120 million from NSW Ports to deliver ‘on-dock’ rail infrastructure and $70 million from Patrick Terminals to deliver automated rail operating equipment at the container terminal.
To mark the start of construction, NSW Ports CEO Marika Calfas joined Patrick Terminals CEO Michael Jovicic for a sod turning ceremony, saying the project will ultimately provide a faster, more efficient and economical way for exporters and importers to get their product to market.
“We’re thrilled to start construction on this important rail project, that will deliver capacity to handle 1 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs ) on rail at Port Botany’s Patrick Terminals - Sydney AutoStrad™ and improve train turn-around times by 33 per cent,” Marika said. “We believe that rail is fundamental to support the future growth and trade needs of NSW and construction of this additional on-dock rail infrastructure will further enhance efficiencies in the supply chain.”
The project is also set to help reduce the growth of trucks on roads around the port, “Our goal is to move 3 million TEUs by rail by 2045, because for every 1 million TEU on rail we reduce the number of trucks on the roads around the port by 900 per day,” Marika concluded.
Michael Jovicic, Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Terminals said: “Patrick Terminals is focused on improving capacity whilst enhancing productivity and efficiency in container movements. Patrick Terminals - Sydney AutoStrad™ currently handles a large volume of rail-based containers and is focussed on growing and optimising our rail offering. The introduction of automated rail operating equipment coupled with the “on-dock” infrastructure will increase our terminal’s rail capacity whilst ensuring we maintain a safe and reliable operation.”
The project will take place in staged development to allow existing rail operations at the terminal to continue throughout the construction period. Once fully operational in 2023, the project will:
- Increase rail capacity of the Patrick Terminals – Sydney AutoStrad™ from 250,000 to 1 million TEU
- Deliver 33 percent faster turnaround times
- Deliver more rail windows for cargo owners including regional trains for NSW
- Reduce the truck kilometres travelled in Sydney by at least 10 million per year
- Save over 2 million litres of diesel per year – the equivalent of a net reduction of more than 5,400 in CO2 emissions tonnes per year
- Increase the number of daily train windows at the Patrick Terminal from eight to 12 with the ability to progressively increase to 24 daily windows when more Automated Rail Mounted Gantries are installed
- Provides the capacity to double the number of daily trains to Port Botany from 16 to 32
- Double annual Port Botany portside total rail capacity from 750,000 TEU to 1.5 million TEU
The Stage 1 project is part of a NSW Ports’ overarching program to increase ‘on-dock’ rail capacity at each of its three Port Botany container terminals, which will deliver a total of 3 million TEU rail capacity at the port.
The project is also aligned with other important rail investments including the Port Botany freight line duplication (Commonwealth Government funding) and NSW Ports’ $250 million development of its Enfield Intermodal Logistics Centre, which includes an intermodal terminal and logistics warehouses connected by dedicated freight rail to Port Botany.
[1] A Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit or TEU indicates the number of Twenty Foot Equivalent Units handled.
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Download this media release: NSW Ports media release 2 September 2019
For more media information please contact:
NSW Ports on 0410 597 547 or vida.cheeseman@nswports.com.au
Patrick Terminals on 0418 653 863 or sarah@freshmarketing.com.au
About NSW Ports
NSW Ports manages Port Botany and Port Kembla, key export and import gateways connecting to global markets, and the Enfield Intermodal Logistics Centre and the Cooks River Intermodal Terminal. NSW Ports is a private consortium of leading institutional investors: IFM Investors (including Cbus, HESTA and Hostplus), AustralianSuper, Tawreed Investments Limited and Q Super. Our shareholders represent over six million Australian superannuation fund members and are long term investors with interests in a range of Australian infrastructure assets.
About Patrick
Patrick Terminals is Australia’s leading container terminal operator. Patrick operates some of Australia’s most technologically advanced container terminals at four strategically located ports around the Australian coast. Patrick’s network of terminals includes Brisbane AutoStrad™ Terminal, Sydney AutoStrad™ Terminal, Melbourne Terminal and Fremantle Terminal. Patrick Terminals is co-owned by Qube Holdings and Brookfield, as part of the Qube/Brookfield consortium.