Further huge price hikes have been imposed by seaports on the shipping industry working in Australia.
Southern Ports, which operates the ports at Albany, Bunbury, and Esperance, has imposed sweeping fee hikes on shipping as of 01 July 2025.
At the port of Esperance, Southern Ports, has imposed:
- a 5% hike in the pilotage charge
- a 19% increase in berth 1 and berth 2 navigation service charges
- a 5% increase in the berth 3 navigation service charge
- a 21% increase in berth 1 and berth 2 hire charges
- a 55 increase in berth 3 charges
- a 27% increase in vessel mooring / unmooring service charges
- a 5% general increase in other port charges.
Commenting on the fee hikes, the port operator stated that charges are being harmonised to “appropriately allocate corporate overheads, port overheads, and port common landside assets”.
Shipping Australia understands that a variety of trades will be affected. For example, a vessel carrying urea – commonly used to make fertilizer – will face increases in 2024-2025 of just under 26%, and in 2025-2026 will face a further hike of just over 17%.
By way of comparison, the average Consumer Price Index in Perth over 16 quarters from June 2021 to March 2025 is just 5%, and over the 2024 calendar year it was about 3.68%. Both of these CPI figures are very much considerably below the price hikes announced by Southern Ports.
It’s also worth having a quick squint at the 2023-2024 Southern Ports Annual Report. In that year, it generated AUD$192.15 million and profit after tax of AUD$21.53 million. Meanwhile, Western Australia is on track for a AUD$2.4 billion surplus, and the government has been talking of its AAA-rated credit profile.
Why can’t the state fund its ports rather than soaking their customers?
But wait, there’s more fees to be paid at Pilbara Ports…
Pilbara Ports Authority has announced that it will be extending a charge for another 12 months.
The Sustaining Infrastructure Due was, er, due to end on 30 June 2025.
The Due was set up on 01 July 2020 and was supposed to last five years to cover the cost of remediation works to port assets, Nelson Point Tug Haven Revetments and the Sheet Pile Wall along with the Port Hedland Inner Harbour Revetments, which were impacted by Cyclone Veronica.
The Port Authority has decided that it needs more funds to complete the works and so, to partially cover the cost increases, the Due has been extended by 12 months.
Record results for Pilbara Ports
In 2023-2024 (the 2024-2025 results aren’t published yet) Pilbara Ports Authority reported Profit Before Income Tax of AUD$354.2 million on total revenues of AUD$751.8 million. In the 2022-23 Annual Report, it delivered AUD$241.4 million in Net Profit After Tax, which it reported as being 30.6% up on the prior year.
So there are some really good questions to ask: given that the port invests in assets for the purposes of making a profit, why isn’t the port just paying for the repair of its own assets given its enormous revenues and profits? Why is it outsourcing the costs that ought to be paid by the port?
Why do shipping companies have to pay this bill? And, given the huge and increasing profits at the Pilbara Port Authority, why do shipping companies have to pay for another year?
All of these disproportionate fee hikes (and other hikes at other ports) place an increasingly unjustified and heavy financial burden on shipping operators. And, of course, in the long run it hurts the competitiveness of Australian importers and exporters, and imposes an increasingly heavy burden on the Australian economy, Australian miners, Australian retailers, and the ordinary, everyday Australian families.
It is time for Australian port pricing to be brought back under control so that Australian ports stop imposing shadow taxes on the Australian economy and start working for the benefit of all Australians instead.
Given the current focus on national productivity, it’s also worth thinking about this from a productivity perspective. Australia’s economy is basically paying ever more (and in sharp hikes completely beyond inflation) to use the same services. That’s pretty much the definition of increasing inefficiency.
Shipping Australia calls for regulatory decision-markers, especially those involved in the current productivity discussions, to start talking about how to regulate port pricing across Australia for the benefit of all Australians.
