Cattle exported from Broome’s floating jetty for the first time

WA’s northern pastoral industry has ticked off another significant milestone, exporting cattle from a floating wharf at Broome for the first time.

The new $250 million wharf — privately owned and operated by Kimberley Marine Support Base — operates within the Port of Broome and has been specifically designed for the town’s extreme tidal fluctuations.

A total 3600 head of cattle were loaded aboard Gudali Express before it set sail for Indonesia on October 14, marking the first cattle export ship to be loaded via the new floating facility.

Kimberley Marine Support Base corporate and commercial development executive manager Chris Ciriello said the infrastructure would allow for continuous, year-round livestock exports.

He said it had significantly improved logistics by providing direct access for cattle loading from the causeway.

“We will look to expand and support the agriculture industry . . . to import or export things like fodder, fertilisers, to other bulk opportunities . . . and we will also look at containers,” he said.

“There have also been discussions from various parties about container fodder. We don’t want to be the sticking point, we over engineered the facility to be able to take large vessels of up to 350m.”

Mr Ciriello said the floating wharf would service a range of industries, including mining, agriculture and tourism — with the first shipment containing a crane arriving on September 15 and a cruise ship berthing two days later.

The 11,500 tonne, 9250sqm structure features a 255m berth line, and a 400m bi-directional causeway and an 85m linkspan bridge connecting to land — allowing 24/7 operations regardless of tide depth.

Existing port infrastructure, which will still be used to export cattle, consists of a fixed-height jetty that is at the mercy of some of Australia’s biggest tides, where the water level can rise and fall by 10m in just six hours.

The first cattle vessel was loaded at a fast pace of six hours and 30 minutes, for 3600 cattle, with Mr Ciriello saying refining efficiency had led to being able to load another 1025 head in another six minutes.

“The facility is floating, meaning the vessel stays alongside the whole time . . . and we can have larger vessels alongside, and turn a triple and a quad (road train) on the facility itself,” he said.

“Instead of driving a double (road train) on a previous facility, breaking it apart . . . loading it and waiting for it to leave. . . . we can have multiple triples or quads on rotation.”

Kimberley Pilbara Cattlemen’s Association chief executive Bron Christensen was among dozens of pastoral representatives that toured the facility in recent month, describing it as an “amazing” piece of infrastructure.

In opening the facility in September, WA Ports Minister Stephen Dawson described it as a “game changer” for the region.

“Having this new facility will mean the port is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.

“It will be a significant economic enabler for the Kimberley region.”

Kimberley Marine Support Base and Kimberley Ports Authority have entered a suite of long-term commercial agreements for the facility, with KPA to provide stevedoring services for the first five years of operation.

Mr Ciriello said the facility had also attracted interest from governments in terms of bringing in supplies in emergency situations, with severe Kimberley floods cutting off roads in December 2022 and January 2023.

The Port of Broome has cemented itself as Australia’s second-biggest cattle export port this year, with 72,574 head shipped for the year by the end of October —matching the entire volume of cattle shipped in 2024.

Meanwhile, 16,474 cattle had been exported from the Kimberley’s other port at Wyndham by the end of October.