Securing Melbourne as Australasia's container freight hub

The Port of Melbourne is Australasia’s largest container port, handling 2.65 million TEU’s annually. The Port Capacity Project increased the container and vehicle delivery capacity of the Port, securing it as Australia’s leading maritime trade hub.

The investment by the Port of Melbourne and commercial partners in the Port Capacity Project has created Australia’s newest container terminal. Its modern, advanced features include robotic container shuttles, five enormous ship-to-shore cranes and 20 automated container stacking cranes. It also includes over a kilometre of new wharf, new motor vehicle import (pre-delivery) facilities and heavy duty arterial road connections, trunk services and extensive buffer landscaping.

The project has expanded the Port’s automotive capacity to handle more than 1,000,000 vehicles per year and boosted its container handling capacity by at least 1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) per year.

At the peak of construction this $1.6 billion project was the largest infrastructure development in Australia. We helped deliver the significant project through nearly 16,000 hours of specialist services over three years, including contract, design, project and CAD management.

With a project this size, there were some significant challenges to overcome, including the excavation, relining and construction of heavy duty pavements over large, high pressure gas and oil pipelines. We also needed to manage poor and mildly contaminated ground, all while the shipping and port operations continued next to the project site. It was all completed while satisfying the most stringent environmental management plan ever approved in Victoria.

Awards

2016 Australian Engineering Excellence Award – Project Infrastructure Category to contractor BMD (Roads and Services work package)