CONFIDENCE in the northern beef industry is being backed with money.
On land beside AACo’s new abattoir, livestock exporter Wellard is building a new state-of-the-art export facility.
Wellard has bought 100 hectares alongside the 300ha it currently leases at Livingstone, 50 kilometres south of Darwin, which hosts the company’s Santavan export quarantine operation.
The new $14 million Santavan extension will be capable of accommodating 20,000 feeder cattle. It is rated for 12,000 head of 500kg slaughter stock.
The company also this week announced the keel-laying of its new ship, the MV Ocean Kelpie.
Capable of carrying 10,000 cattle or 40,000 sheep, the Kelpie is being built in Croatia.
Like the Santavan development, it is intended to be state-of-the-art, combining handling and transport efficiency with the latest in technologies that support animal welfare.
Wellards announced these capital developments after flagging its plans to list as a public company, a move that it hopes will see it valued at around half a billion dollars.
The float will not be just a test of Wellard, but a litmus test of views about the Australian live export sector outside the livestock exporting and beef industries.
For its part, Wellard is building for the long term.
Bernie Brosnan, Wellard Rural Exports’ general manager, South East Asia, said the although the Santavan site will be used as a cattle quarantine and holding facility, the latest feedlot design principles are being used in its construction.
Half the feed yards will be covered with cyclone-proof roofing, a rarity in northern cattle facilities because of the expense.
The induction area is capable of holding cattle until they have received all the treatments needed for export protocols, before they are released into the sheds.
If ships are available, the entire facility will be capable of being emptied of 20,000 head in 36 hours.
Wellard's largest ship, the Ocean Drover, has a 20,000 head capacity.
Mr Brosnan said the Livingstone site was chosen because it made logistical sense.
Lying 50km from the port, it enables ships to be filled using a chain of eight road trains.
“If we went to Batchelor, 120km down the highway, I would need 17 trucks,” Mr Brosnan said.
“In the dry season, when all the trucks are working, to get 17 trucks is a nightmare.”
The Santavan development shares its entry road with AACo’s Livingstone abattoir.
That proximity should provide some useful synergies for cattle producers, Mr Brosnan said.
“Producers might only have three decks of boat cattle, and before the abattoir was built they would still get charged a four-deck rate. Now they can add three decks of slaughter cattle for the abattoir, and reduce the rate across those animals.”
Over time, Mr Brosnan speculated that producers might also use Santavan to rehydrate cattle after transport, to prevent dark cutting at slaughter.
