Stockpile warning for severed freight routes

Businesses are being urged to stock up inventories as the prospect of more freight disruptions loom over WA coming into the wet season up north and fire season down south.

WA and NT transport industry leaders will meet next week to iron out a plan to tackle expected fires and floods which could render WA’s freight network impassable for the fourth time in the past five years.

Already crippled by the severing of the Great Northern Highway at Fitzroy Crossing, the vulnerability of the Eyre and Stuart highways has also been brought into question by the federal Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport.

Western Roads Federation chief executive Cam Dumesny said events such as the Eyre Highway fires in 2020 could leave produce sitting in trucks either side of road closures for weeks.

“Every time we have a disruption to the freight network we get bare shelves in WA,” he said.

“Whether it be the road network east west or the rail network, they are increasingly being knocked out by weather events or whatever.

“We need to start being a bit more resilient in how we do things and it's not just hardening the networks, it is where we store stuff, bringing in buffer stocks, it is looking at coastal shipping.”

The transport meeting comes off the back of years of major disruptions, including the collapse of the Fitzroy River bridge this year, Eyre Highway fires in 2020 and major flooding over the Trans Australian railway in 2022.

The Great Northern Highway will close again in late October this year as the new bridge is yet to be completed, limiting traffic only to vehicles which can fit on small barge dependent on favourable weather.

NT Road Transport Association executive officer Louise Bilato said it would be a nervous wet season for those pinning their hopes on the Fitzroy Bridge’s reopening next year.

“I am not being a scare monger but those people constructing the bridge at Fitzroy Crossing now, they would have to have their fingers crossed that there's not a big wet season this year,” she said.

“You would not want to see what they've constructed washed down the river again.

“That would crucify towns like Kununurra and Halls Creek. It's not unfathomable.”

The looming closure has already forced Buru Energy’s hand to mothball its Ungani oilfield west of Fitzroy Crossing which relies on truck access to Wyndham Port to export crude oil.

That route leaves it reliant on the Great Northern Highway, which without the Fitzroy Bridge will be cut off when the Martuwarra fills with wet season rains.

The ASX-listed oil and gas explorer and producer recommended to its joint venture partner Roc Oil the next crude oil lifting at Ungani scheduled for late August should be its last due to uncertainty around transport of its product.

Suspension of Ungani will involve termination of trucking and storage contracts, job losses and a revision to the operation’s management plan.

Buru said it would update the market on long term plans following government approval of its revised plan.