Where do you land if you travel 1,500 km north of Perth? In ‘Good Country’ which you might know better as Karratha.
You can see why it gained the Aboriginal name for ‘Good Country’ with its all year-round sunshine, being surrounded by iconic natural attractions, the largest shopping centre in the Pilbara on its door step and let us not forget about the abundance of natural resources.
The town was originally created to service and accommodate the workers of Hamersley Iron, Robe River Associates, the Dampier Salt Company and the North West Shelf Gas and Petroleum project so it is no wonder that the town of an estimates population of 18,000 is still heavily contributing to the mining workforce of local projects. It is in their blood.
Let’s look at what is happening in Karratha now.
Talk about diverse. Karratha has gold, urea fertilizer, sea salt, oil & gas, methanol and good old iron ore. No wonder Karratha is considered the Powerhouse of the Pilbara.
As well as current projects there is a projected $65 billion worth of new projects on the cards over the next five years. Projects include three big iron ore projects by Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals Group and BHP as well as Woodside’s Scarborough and Browse developments.
With all this new development coupled with existing projects, Karratha looks set to head into another construction boom. There’s a new hanger going in to Karratha Airport to service offshore islands like Varanus Island gas processing facility and new policies have been set by the city council to encourage permanent residents over FIFO.
Lancorp already has blocks ready to go in Madigan and Mulataga and upgrades to health, leisure and education facilities as well as new transport and service infrastructure are already in the pipeline.
Lancorp has said that there will be sites zoned ‘City Centre’ in the heart of the Karratha CBD available towards the end of 2019 and there is opportunity to develop and operate a 4-star hotel in the city’s main street within The Quarter. And to top it off, just 4km from the CBD is the proposed development of Tambrey Shopping Precinct.
Is Karratha heading into another construction boom, or has it has already started? With 836 jobs listed on Seek.com as of July 2019 for the area of Karratha, 455 alone are for the mining and resource sector it would appear something is bubbling.
So other than the odd tropical cyclones, Karratha looks like a good place to be.
If you are heading to Karratha for a trip and want to learn more about the local culture, join traditional custodians on a 1.5 hour rock art and cultural experience in the Murrunjuga National Park. Only 30 minutes from the town centre.