April 1996

Fremantle's third stevedoring service - Western Stevedores - began operating with the port in April 1996.

May 1996

At a ceremony in May 1996, Fremantle Port was awarded a Level 3 certificate of audit by DNV Technica following its adoption of the Safety Management System (SMS).

June 1996

Australia's newest container crane arrived in Fremantle in June 1996 on board the "Dock Express II". The $11 million Noell crane was the centrepiece of P&O Ports $20 million investment on North Quay.

A new hydrographic survey echo sounder system was installed in Fremantle Ports' emergency response vessel, "FP Response" for a series of trials. The system allows large areas of the sea bed to be mapped in a fraction of the time taken by traditional methods.

11 June 1996

On 11 June 1996, Patrick Stevedores signed a 21 year lease to finalise its negotiations on terminal consolidation at Fremantle. The company proposed to invest around $40 million on container facilities at the Port of Fremantle over a period of six years.

July 1996

The "Contship Romance", Contship Container Line's newest ship, became the deepest draft container vessel ever to enter Fremantle's Inner Harbour when it arrived in July 1996. The ship, 192.5 metres in length, has a maximum draft of 12.8m.

1 July 1996

Fremantle Port Authority moved into a new era of operations with the introduction of commercialisation as a business focus as of July 1, 1996.

20 September 1996

The relocated and reconstructed E-shed opened as "E-shed markets" on 20 September 1996. The building, originally a wharf shed at E-berth was dismantled and re-constructed piece by piece at its new location.

November 1996

The Nippon Yosen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) Line celebrated the 100th anniversary of the NYK Line in Australia with a function in Perth. The arrival of the "Yamashira Maru", in Australia in November 1896, was the beginning of the association between NYK and Australia.

Fremantle Port Authority's Outer Harbour boundaries were revised. The new boundaries considerably reduced the amount of water area under Fremantle Ports control - 376 square kilometres as against 876 square kilometres. The new boundaries also reduce the amount of coastline controlled by the Authority.

A state of the art port information system - PORT/AMS was introduced by Fremantle Port Authority in November 1996. The new electronic system has been designed to handle all ship bookings, berthing, hazardous cargo and chemical management, port bills and manifest processing.

17 November 1996

Thousands of people came to Fremantle's Inner Harbour to welcome home 18 year old David Dicks, the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe single handed. His yacht, "Seaflight" was escorted into the harbour by a flotilla of small boats including Fremantle Ports' own "FP Response"