Expansion
In the early years, Westshore had a throughput capacity of 5.5 million tonnes.
There were two main coal products and it took 43 employees to run the terminal.
Shipments totalled 1.5 million tonnes in 1970 with 33 vessels calling. Throughput more than doubled in
the first full year of 1971 to 3.8 million tonnes and by 1979 had reached 10.1 million tonnes thanks to more coal
mines coming on stream. Bigger equipment such as two stacker-reclaimers helped lift the terminal’s capacity
The pressure of increasing shipments helped persuade the National Harbours Board to approve an
imaginative plan to quadruple the size of the Roberts Bank facility to 80 hectares. Work began in 1981 and took until
early 1984. Westshore leased half of the reclaimed land (40 hectares or 100 acres), built a second deep-sea berth,
and added a twin rotary dumper station to go with the original single rotary dumper,
and high-speed conveyors and other handling equipment.
Shipments jumped dramatically from 11.7 million tonnes in 1983 to 16.5 mt in 1984 and have climbed
steadily since to break 20 mt for the first time in 1989. Westshore set a record in 1997 at 23.5 million tonnes.
Since then the company has consistently shipped an annual total of around 21 million tonnes.
Today, Westshore has 195 employees and runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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