Hunter River South Arm – Port of Newcastle - Further Port Development

As the owner of the bed of the Hunter River within the Port of Newcastle, NSW Maritime has development consent for the future dredging of the South Arm of the river. This dredging will be carried out progressively by the private sector to meet the future growth of trade through the port.

NSW Maritime has prepared a Strategic Development Program that outlines the proposed dredging. The current proposal for the development of new coal loading facilities involves the construction of up to 4 new shipping berths within the Port.

Stages 1 to 4 of the dredging program will involve the removal of around 8.8 million cubic metres of material from the river including a significant proportion of rock. It is expected that jaround half of this dredged material will be re-used as land fill for adjacent sites with the remainder disposed of at sea.

Private sector proponents for each of the individual developments are required to obtain separate development consent for their land based components and seek specific approvals for their dredging operations within the dredging consent framework.

The first private sector proponent, Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG) commenced dredging in December 2007.  This followed the company obtaining approvals and permits from a number of NSW and Commonwealth agencies including approval of the NCIG Dredging Plan and the signing of a Dredging Licence with NSW Maritime. NCIG will dredge around 6.1 million cubic metres including 4.1 million metres of clean sand to provide deep water to its proposed berths K8 and K9, with the clean sand used for fill and pre-loading on its coal terminal site.  NCIG dredging is due to be completed by April 2009.

BHPBilliton will remove and treat around 650,000 cubic metres of contaminated river sediments along the southern side of the river, which is a legacy from its former steelworks operations.  This work is scheduled to commence in mid 2008.

Port Waratah Coal Services (PWCS) will dredge around 2.0 million cubic metres including 1.2 million cubic metres of clean sand in association with the development of its K7 berth. Dredging is scheduled to commence in mid 2009, following completion of the BHPB remediation dredging.

Continued
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