October 17 - Eight wind turbines for the White Rock wind farm in New England, New South Wales have arrived at Australia's Port of Newcastle on board the multipurpose vessel Erna Oldendorff.
The shipment is the first of eight that are due to arrive between October 2016 and May 2017, all destined for Goldwind's White Rock farm. The Port of Newcastle will handle a total of 70 turbines for the development.
The turbines arrived at the Mayfield 4 berth and will be stored on the port's Mayfield site, before being transported by road to the site, which is located 20 km west of Glen Innes and 40 km east of Inverell.
According to the port, the wind turbine blades are the largest to arrive in Australia to date, each measuring 59.5 m long.
The logistics of the wind farm project are being coordinated by Blue Water Shipping, which began working on transport operations in July from its office in Singapore.
Port of Newcastle's ceo Geoff Crowe said that the recent shipment demonstrates the port's capacity to import heavy and oversize cargoes for energy, property, rail and road developments going on around New South Wales.
"The port's shipping channel is currently only 50 percent utilised and we have plenty of large parcels of portside land for cargo storage and preassembly, which reduces the number of times cargo is handled, generating cost savings for cargo owners."
Crowe added: "Previous project cargo imports through the Port of Newcastle include a tunnel boring machine for the Sydney north west rail link, locomotives, rail and passenger wagons, mining machinery, large tanks and boilers, transformers and prefabricated structures."
Watch a video of the arrival below:
