The Western Trade Coast has a 65-year history of supporting industrial activity and was one of the first heavy industrial areas established in Western Australia. Today, the Western Trade Coast is an active industrial precinct, with diverse and unique synergies that link its four industrial areas. An attractive location for industrial development, the Western Trade Coast possesses an integrated industrial symbiosis, where companies located in the region engage in product and by-product exchanges and innovative collaborations.
What is the Western Trade Coast?
The Western Trade Coast (WTC) is Western Australia’s premier industrial area, 30 minutes south of the Perth CBD. It is well-served by major transport links, including deep-water bulk port facilities, high-wide and dangerous goods freight routes, and heavy rail.
122 Industries
Synergies between current industries located in the Western Trade Coast.
$14.8 billion
Total contribution to the Western Australian economy.
Job creation
42,900 direct FTE jobs supported by the Western Trade Coast, and 3% of Western Australia’s direct and indirect workforce.
Economic multiplier
A multiplier of 1.68. For every $1 invested, there is a $0.68 spill over to the Western Australian economy.
$18.2 billion
$18.2 billion in total economic contribution to Australia, accounting for around 1% of Australia’s GDP.
Supplies 32 countries
32 countries supplied with at least $10m worth of products by the Western Trade Coast annually.
There are four primary industrial estates within the WTC, these being the Kwinana Industrial Area (KIA), Rockingham Industry Zone (RIZ), The Australian Marine Complex (AMC), and Latitude 32.
The WTC is protected from residential land encroachment by a buffer zone.
Situated around the edge of the Western Trade Coast are the residential suburbs of Rockingham, Kwinana and Cockburn.
Industrial Suburbs
There are four industrial suburbs that make up the WTC, each with their own areas of specialisation. They are:
The Kwinana Industrial Area (KIA)
This area represents the original Kwinana Industrial Area, or heavy industry core. Its first entrant was the BP Kwinana oil refinery which opened in 1955. It has been the home of the traditional heavy industries, including petroleum and minerals refineries, power stations, chemical plants, cement works and a range of supporting industries. It is a busy industrial deep-water bulk port and is approaching land availability capacity.
Rockingham Industry Zone (RIZ)
On the fringes of the heavy industrial core is the RIZ. This is a newly developing heavy and light industrial area designed as an overflow to the KIA and for a belt of light industry through to commercial development as it gets closer to residential development. It provides space for many transport, storage and laydown areas as well as new industrial land for supporting and heavy industry.
Australian Marine Complex (AMC)
In the northern part of the WTC is the Australian Marine Complex, which is a specialist area for shipbuilding, marine engineering, manufacturing, fabrication, defence services, technology and general engineering. The area alongside the wharves also serves as a marshalling area for mining resource, oil & gas, marine, logistics and defence projects.
Latitude 32
To the east is the Latitude 32 Industry Zone. Covering 1,400ha, when fully developed, this major industrial development zone will be amongst the largest in Australia and will be constructed to meet short, medium and long-term demand for industrial land in Perth.
Designated a Strategic Industrial Area
The strategic importance of the Western Trade Coast has been recognised by the Western Australian Government with it being classified as Strategic Industrial Area (SIA).
The Kwinana SIA ensures strategically important industry has access to serviced, well-buffered and appropriately zoned land in close proximity to the Fremantle Port.
The Kwinana SIA is a specialist centre for chemical and resource-based processing industries, directly adjacent to the Fremantle Port’s deep-water bulk materials facilities and associated road and rail and networks.
The Benefits of Clusters
The Kwinana Industrial Area is a world class example of the benefits of industrial-scale clustering. It is one of the world’s best practice examples of industrial symbiosis at work, with well over 170 product, by-product and utility exchanges occurring on commercial terms.
Clusters can be facilitated by governments through the provision of the basic infrastructure such as appropriately zoned and buffered land, efficient and scalable transport and pipeline corridors, utility provision designed to accommodate growth, etc. Governments can also ensure that their governance over the cluster is of high quality.
An ‘industrial cluster’ occurs where similar companies are located in close proximity, and the Kwinana Industrial Area (KIA) is an excellent example of one such cluster.
Companies in clusters are more competitive and efficient than similar companies located outside of clusters.
The improved competitiveness comes from being co-located with other businesses, so there is a
- higher likelihood of an efficient, integrated freight transport system servicing the area;
- larger number of specialised, skilled and experienced workers who will move within the cluster;
- shorter distance from process input supplies, possibly even able to be piped to users;
- higher likelihood that by-products will be able to be used as an input into by nearby industry processes, increasing the re-use and recycling of materials;
- increased interest from the secondary (supporting engineering and fabrication) industry sector to locate near the heavy industry cluster thus further reducing the costs for all parties;
- an attraction to move to the cluster to take advantage of the synergies, and to add to them; and
- greater economic impact which can attract greater governmental support.
Synergies
The Kwinana Industrial Area is regarded as one of the world’s best practice examples of industrial symbiosis. There are over 170 commercial exchanges operating amongst the industrial companies located within the Western Trade Coast (WTC).
“Industrial symbiosis engages diverse organisations in a network to foster eco-innovation and long-term culture change. Creating and sharing knowledge through the network yields mutually profitable transactions for novel sourcing of required inputs, value-added destinations for non-product outputs, and improved business and technical processes.”
Lombardi, D. R. and Laybourn, P. (2012), Redefining Industrial Symbiosis. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16: 28–37. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00444.x
In layman’s terms, industrial symbiosis is about product and by-product exchanges, carried out on commercial terms.
The diagram below illustrates the scale of symbiosis occurring across the Kwinana Industrial Area, and its importance to the successful and sustainable operations of the State’s premier heavy industrial area.
The synergies help make the participating companies more internationally competitive. It’s also good for the environment because one company’s waste becomes the input for another.
