Trade on new shipping routes established a little over a year ago between the Pilbara and Singapore has boomed, and now includes cargo from companies outside of the region.
Project lead at global logistics company Pentagon Freight Services Kylie Woodfin said the ports in Dampier and Port Hedland were now being viewed as alternatives to the Port of Fremantle.
"The vessel that's in right now in Dampier Port, I've got full a drill pipe that we're actually going to truck down here [to Perth] because it's going to cost us less money and less time to get it in up north and then bring it down to Perth," she said.
The first shipments along the new route from Singapore – a major global shipping hub – arrived in Port Hedland in November 2020, and to Dampier in February 2021.
These routes connect the Pilbara with the world, via Singapore, as Captain Paul Toussaint-Jackson, founder of direct freight shipping company Australian Floating Decks which delivered the 2018 Pilbara Freight Study, has said.
Across both the Port of Dampier and of Port Hedland, the company's trade has reached the equivalent of 20,000 twenty-foot sea containers per annum and is still growing.
Pilbara Ports Authority chief executive Roger Johnston said new direct shipping lines have contributed to growing trade, and, in the past year, the Port of Port Hedland has experienced a tenfold increase in container volumes.
"The Pilbara Ports Authority has already identified the need to expand its first point of entry facilities [at Dampier and Port Hedland] by three times in order to accommodate inbound cargo."
Businesses and industry using the direct shipping services said the new routes were notable time savers.
"On the transit time from Singapore alone, it shaves off about six days," Ms Woodfin said.
"Then on top of that, the berthing delays for the vessel to even get tied up down here in Freo port, you're looking at weeks on steel-laden vessels."
Previously, freight en route to the region made land in Fremantle and was trucked 1000 odd kilometres or more to the state's North West.
Pilbara Stone – which quarries marble predominantly south of the Ashburton River – said the ability to ship out of Dampier had considerably cut haulage distances and costs.
"We did some early shipments by Perth, which required us to organise backloading on trucks and then shipping from Perth to the processing works in China," director Mike Elliot said.
With much of the state's resources industry located in the north, large items such drill rigs would also have to be trucked up from Fremantle port.
Ms Woodfin said Pentagon's customers, which are primarily in the oil, gas and renewables industries, have also found the direct shipping routes have translated into lower costs.
"It has definitely driven the cost down in an economic climate where everything else is going up. It's made availability and space on vessels much easier.
Part of the challenge of shipping into a busy port with a backlog was the possibility of being hit with big charges, Ms Woodfin said, such as vessel detention fees.
"For the smaller break-bulk, which is uncontainerised freight, when you take out a large chunk of their vessel, you become liable for delays on the vessels.
"In general shipping times, when it wasn't as bad it is right now, you would be looking at generally four days in for the vessel to come unload and then disappear.
Captain Toussaint-Jackson said he expected as much as 10 per cent of general cargo trade through the Port of Fremantle to shift to Pilbara direct trades.
The new routes, he said, have also lowered prohibitive costs and enabled local businesses to export to overseas markets.
