By Rob McKay & Paula Wallace
Though it has been portrayed as a battle by proxy over Australian resources control between Japan and China which Japan has won, companies from both countries can be expected to have strong involvement in the project.
WA premier Colin Barnett said the proposed $4bn development at Oakajee, 25km north of Geraldton, could attract major new resources processing and export industries to Western Australia.
The development of a deep-sea port, associated rail infrastructure and a purpose-built, world class industrial estate at Oakajee is the single most important project for WA’s economic development over the next 50 years, Barnett said.
The infrastructure will be Government-owned with port users being charged for its use on a commercial basis.
Construction could begin in 2010/11 with export shipments starting in 2013/14.
The State Development Agreement included:
appointing OPR on an exclusive basis, as the infrastructure provider to design and construct a port and a railway linking the port with mining tenements in the Weld Range and Jack Hills, based on an open access regime
providing State and/or Federal Government funding for common-use infrastructure including the channel, breakwater, turning basin, navigational aids, provision for tug and pilot boat pens, port administration offices and roads and utilities
giving the infrastructure provider a 50-year lease over the rail network corridor and an area of the port where it will operate an iron ore berth and associated materials handling equipment and stockpiles
giving private and state-owned Chinese companies the opportunity to be involved in the project through the provision of rail cars, fabricated structural steel, engineering and construction services and financing.
Barnett said that as a result of the agreement OPR would spend $160m on further investigative studies, but that the project was dependent on a positive bankable feasibility study, due for completion by March 31st next year.
The Government and OPR would also need to negotiate an implementation agreement that detailed terms and conditions for the development of port and rail infrastructure.
The West Australian reported OPR chief executive Chris Eves as saying he had already spoken to AnSteel, one of China’s biggest steel mills and the controlling partner of the Karara magnetite project in the Mid-West, about providing steel for the rail network while he was also considering Chinese rail wagon suppliers.
WAs Shadow Strategic Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan welcomed the Oakajee Port and Rail project moving forward but remains concerned that $700million of taxpayers funds are being diverted to a project which the private sector had agreed to fund.
Under the bid process, OPR agreed to build the port infrastructure and hand over the ownership and management of the common use infrastructure to the Geraldton Port Authority at its completion.
Extraordinarily, Premier Barnett continues to mislead the public by claiming taxpayers funds were necessary because otherwise the port would be foreign-owned and foreign-controlled.
There are many other infrastructure projects that do require Government funds which will now need to be put on the backburner.
The Premier has refused to provide a business case for this taxpayer investment, she said.
MacTiernan said a completion date before 2014 is optimistic and it could mean any project that needs further capacity at Geraldton Port before then will be stalled.
