PORT of Newcastle is lifting the stakes on its bid to be a container handling hub, with two mobile harbour cranes expected to be operational by the end of August.
The cranes were being loaded onto a ship in Germany earlier this week and would arrive in August, according to Port of Newcastle chief executive officer, Craig Carmody. He said the cranes would be installed at the Mayfield 4 berth, "creating a regional container-handling facility".
"It's only going to be small numbers," said Mr Carmody of the containers handled. "We're hoping that maybe we'll do 40,000 or so in the first full year of operation.
"Our view is with everything that's going on post-COVID, there is a demand in the market, we need to be able to service that.
"It's nowhere near to the size that we wanted. But our view is we start this business, we show it's viable."
Port of Newcastle says its $1.8 billion Deepwater Container Terminal project has been constrained for years, due to an agreement between the NSW Government and members of a consortium known as NSW Ports, which owns Port Kembla and Port Botany.
As part of the deal, if Port of Newcastle developed a terminal and exceeded a cap on the number of containers handled, the state would pay fees to NSW Ports. Port of Newcastle would then have to reimburse the state.
Mr Carmody indicated the handling of 40,000 containers initially would be under the cap.
The issue has ended up in the courts. Despite a Federal Court ruling last year in which Port of Newcastle's container terminal proposal was described as "fanciful" and "far-fetched", the organisation believes it is integral to diversification in a harbour, where presently the main cargo is coal.
"We show the shipping lines, we show to freight forwarding companies ... we can do containers at Newcastle," said Mr Carmody. "And we just start building that momentum."
Mr Carmody hopes the cranes will also capture the attention of the NSW Government, which is facing an election next year, and move along the issue of the Port of Newcastle's container terminal plans.
"We've decided that since people in Sydney don't want to hear reality, we're going to try and bring it to a head a bit," he said.
"Maybe I'll be proven wrong here, but I assume that even the bureaucrats and ministers down in Sydney, if you actually start doing boxes, then it removes that argument that, 'Well, you're never going to build something'.
"We're just hoping that there's a momentum leading up to the March election, where maybe enough people during an election period might actually listen for a change to the Hunter."
Each of the German-built cranes bound for Newcastle are 80 metres high when fully extended and can lift 104 tonnes. Mr Carmody said the cranes project was costing about $32 million.
"We have to put our own money on the line and show to the region, and to this city, that we're prepared to back ourselves," he said.
