Port of Brisbane hits all-time low!

9 July 2002

On Friday 5 July the Regional Harbour Master accepted a minimum depth of 14 metres (at the lowest astronomical tide of the year) in all of the Port of Brisbane’s navigational channels, including the swing basin to Fisherman Islands. A Notice to Mariners is being issued today.

The 14-metre limit applies to just 15 per cent of the channel, with the rest being natural deep water.

Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Coleman, said, “Last year we made a decision to gain an advantage over our eastern seaboard neighbours by deepening our channels to 14 metres.

“This has now become a reality, and we have a depth that meets the shipping industry’s requirement for us to accommodate new deeper-draft vessels currently planned for the Australian trade.”

Mr Coleman said that being Australia’s ‘Deep Port’ would make Brisbane very attractive in terms of being able to offer an improved intermodal transport solution.

“The recent ‘rebirth’ of rail as a cost-effective, land-transportation alternative means that there are very real benefits in offloading cargo in Brisbane for on-forwarding by rail,” he said.

“We are ideally set up for this with the Brisbane Multimodal Terminal now receiving four Pacific National services a week from Sydney and Melbourne on a single standard gauge, and the number of services can increase to meet demand.”