NAIF approves $180 million loan for Townsville industrial precinct expansionUpdated

The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has approved a $180 million concessional loan to support the development of a new industrial precinct at the Port of Townsville, providing long-term financing at below-market rates for the enabling infrastructure — roads, power, water, and communications — that will allow a clean energy manufacturing cluster to establish in the precinct.

The precinct, to be developed by Townsville City Council in partnership with the state government and two private anchor tenants who have committed to the site, will initially accommodate a solar panel assembly facility, a battery storage manufacturing operation, and a green hydrogen compression and storage plant supporting the port's aspirations to become a northern Australian hydrogen export terminal.

NAIF chief executive Chris Wade said the Townsville application met all the facility's criteria for concessional support, with demonstrable market failure in private infrastructure financing for industrial precincts of this type and clear public economic and strategic benefits from the investment. "The NAIF exists precisely for infrastructure like this — it unlocks private investment that the market alone cannot finance in northern Australia," he said.

Federal Northern Australia Minister Murray Watt said the Townsville NAIF approval was consistent with the government's strategy of building northern Australia's clean energy manufacturing capability using the region's renewable resource advantage and port infrastructure. "Townsville has world-class solar irradiance, a deep-water port, a skilled industrial workforce, and now concessional debt to put it all together," he said.

Construction of the precinct's enabling infrastructure is expected to begin next year, with the first tenant operations commencing in 2027.

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