The Port of Fremantle is vital infrastructure for Western Australia, a state dependent on trade for its economic performance. It is WA’s biggest general cargo port handling more than $24 billion in trade annually.

The Inner Harbour, designed by Irish-born engineer, C.Y. O’Connor and opened in 1897, is located at the mouth of the Swan River adjacent to the historic City of Fremantle. The Outer Harbour, 20 kilometres further south at Kwinana-Cockburn Sound, was opened in 1955. Its deepwater bulk port facilities were developed to service the Kwinana industrial area, which expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 70s.

Fremantle Ports, a Government trading enterprise, is the strategic manager of the port, with its role being to ensure the port can efficiently cater for trade and operate in a sustainable manner with the support of its customers and the community.

Fremantle Ports’ functions include the facilitation of trade, planning and co-ordination of services, construction and maintenance of infrastructure and planning for future growth and development.

The Inner Harbour at Fremantle handles almost all of the container trade for Western Australia. It also provides facilities for handling livestock exports, motor vehicle imports, other general cargo trades, cruise ships and visiting naval vessels. 

The Outer Harbour, about twenty kilometres to the south at Kwinana, is one of Australia’s major bulk cargo ports handling grain, petroleum, liquid petroleum gas, alumina, mineral sands, fertilisers, sulphur and other bulk commodities.  Fremantle Ports operates the Kwinana Bulk Jetty and the Kwinana Bulk Terminal, providing facilities to handle a range of imports and exports. 

The port is a mixture of facilities and services managed by Fremantle Ports and private operators.

The Kwinana Bulk Jetty and the Kwinana Bulk Terminal are operated by Fremantle Ports. Three of the jetties in the Outer Harbour at Kwinana are operated by private companies, generally under Special Agreement Acts with the State. They are the Alcoa, BP and CBH jetties.