EnergyCo has lodged a major DA for a 52-hectare logistics precinct on the former BHP Steelworks site at 99 Selwyn Street, Mayfield North, seeking approval to store and stage oversized components for the state’s renewable energy transmission projects.
The Newcastle Logistics Precinct – Intertrade Project would convert around 44 hectares of the site into hardstand and laydown areas for wind turbine components, transformers, synchronous condensers and battery energy storage equipment arriving through the Port of Newcastle.
The site has sat vacant since 2018, when a decade-long remediation of the former steelworks was completed. BHP operated on the land for more than 80 years before closing in 1999, and the NSW Environment Protection Authority subsequently found the site posed a contamination risk significant enough to warrant staged remediation between 2008 and 2018.
An existing 2001 development consent covering the site’s remediation and a separate multi-purpose terminal, never built on this parcel, still sits over part of the land, though it doesn’t extend to the new logistics use.
Under the proposal, cranes, reach stackers and forklifts would unload components delivered to Mayfield 4 Berth, temporarily store them on site, then load them onto heavy vehicles bound for the renewable energy zones.
Oversize loads, including turbine blades up to 100 metres long, would move mostly at night, between roughly 9pm and 3am outbound. The project would generate 45 full-time operational jobs and run 24 hours a day on a campaign basis tied to shipping schedules, rather than continuously.
EnergyCo assessed and ruled out Port Kembla and an 18-hectare expansion at Mayfield 4 Berth before settling on the Selwyn Street site, citing insufficient hardstand and road constraints at both alternatives. The precinct would almost double the port’s existing storage capacity for renewable energy componentry, with Port of Newcastle’s existing hardstand already heavily used by other industries, including two separate applications currently seeking to expand cargo storage at Mayfield 4 Berth.
Construction is expected to start mid-2027 and run around 12 months, with initial operations from 2028. The EIS is now on public exhibition for a minimum 28 days, with EnergyCo to lodge a submissions report once feedback closes.
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