10ft Shipping Containers
Side access is pinched, the setback leaves nothing to manoeuvre in, or all that is needed is a lockable spot for the mower, an air compressor and a wall of hand tools.
Port Hedland, WA
Shipping containers Port Hedland
Think in weeks, not days. Port Hedland is around sixteen hundred kilometres north of the nearest depot, and the honest answer to how fast a container can get here is that it depends on when a truck next runs this way with room on the deck. From November through April it depends on the weather as well, because the Turner, Yule and De Grey crossings cut the highway after a serious rain event and the port clears out ahead of a cyclone. None of that is a reason not to order. It is the reason to order early and to be specific.
- Delivered from
- our Fremantle depot, with roughly sixteen hundred kilometres of Great Northern and North West Coastal Highway between there and the Pilbara
- Typical lead time
- Usually 2-4 weeks from order to on the ground, and longer through the wet season
- Usual truck
- Side loader or crane truck for most Pilbara work, since 40ft is common and site cranes are not always free; tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft into town addresses
Every enquiry answered within one business day.You hear back from a person, not an autoresponder. Enquiries that land on a weekend are answered the next business day.
Read this before you settle on a size.
What they get used for around here
Around Port Hedland we deliver containers for lay-down and consumable stores for the contractors working the port, rail and the Boodarie industrial land, spares and tooling storage for shutdown crews who need everything on site before day one, secure trade stores across the Wedgefield industrial estate, crib rooms, first aid rooms and site offices on construction packages, dry storage on the stations running out toward Marble Bar and Nullagine, and household storage for people arriving on a transfer into South Hedland before a house is ready.
Access, ground and the last thirty metres
Hedland splits into two towns for delivery purposes and they behave differently. The West End and the older port-side streets are hemmed in by the harbour, the rail and the stockpiles, with heavy vehicle routes, restricted areas and traffic management that a container truck has to work around rather than through. South Hedland is easier: it was planned in one go, the streets are wide, the estates have room, and a rigid can generally get square to a block without drama. Wedgefield is the best of the lot, purpose-built for industry with hardstand, wide aprons and gear already on site to help. Ground in the Pilbara is mostly excellent. Red laterite gravel and compacted pindan carry a container without complaint, and where a pad has been properly built you can put four castings down and forget about it. The exceptions are worth knowing. The tidal flats around the harbour and out toward Boodarie are soft, saline and unforgiving of a loaded truck, and anything on made-up ground within a year of being placed will still be moving. The wet season changes all of it: what was a hardstand in August is a bog in February, and the black soil pockets around the creek systems hold water long after the rain has stopped. The bigger constraint, though, is the highway itself. When the Turner or the De Grey come up, the road shuts, and it stays shut until the water goes down and the road authority reopens it. Trucks sit and wait, sometimes for days. We build that into the estimate rather than pretending it does not happen. Send site photos, the site contact and the induction requirements with your enquiry, and we will tell you what is realistic on timing before anything gets booked.
Grade moves the price more than size does, and it is what decides whether a unit is sold watertight — the full rundown is on the grades page.
The range
Containers we deliver to Port Hedland
Priced with delivery to your address - one call, one number.
20ft Shipping Containers
There is about seven metres of straight, reasonably level ground for it to sit on, and you would rather not discover in half a year that the bigger box was the answer.
40ft Shipping Containers
You have the space, the approach is genuinely open, and the aim is the largest amount of storage per dollar spent that anybody sells.
Port Hedland
Wet season, cyclone season and what they do to a date
The Pilbara wet runs roughly November to April and it does not affect deliveries gently. A single system parked over the catchments will put the Turner, Yule and De Grey crossings under and close the highway, and a truck already on the road simply stops where it is until the water drops and the road is reopened. When a cyclone is genuinely coming, port operations clear out, sites go into their own cyclone procedures, and nobody is craning anything. A container that would have been on the ground on Thursday can end up being on the ground the following week, and there is no supplier in the country who can promise otherwise, whatever they tell you on the phone.
The way to manage it is not optimism, it is lead time. Order before the wet if you can. If you are planning a shutdown, a camp or a build that needs storage on site in February, place the order in October and let it sit in Hedland waiting for you rather than sitting at Karratha waiting for a road to open. If you need multiple units, order them together so they travel together. Ring 1300 467 776 with the job, the site and the date you actually need it by, and we will be straight with you about whether that date is realistic.
On the ground
Tie-downs, footings and ground preparation
Port Hedland sits in the most cyclone-exposed built-up area in Australia, and the wind loads written into the building rules here are nothing like the rest of the country. A shipping container is heavy and low, which helps, but an empty one is a large box with a lot of side area and it is not the immovable object people assume. Where a container is staying put on a site through a season, it should be restrained: chained or bolted to cast-in anchors, screw piles or a footing designed for it, with the restraint detail specified by an engineer who works to the local wind region rather than by a rule of thumb off the internet. We are container people, not structural engineers, and on anything permanent or on a workplace we will tell you to get that detail drawn up properly.
Ground preparation is the other half. A level, compacted pad with the corner points on concrete or heavy timber does three things at once: it keeps the doors square, it keeps the underside out of the wet, and it gives the tie-down something to work against. Get the pad done before the truck arrives, not after, because shifting a container thirty metres once the truck has left is a second delivery. To be plain about what a container is and is not: it keeps rain off from above, and it does nothing to keep floodwater out. Water that reaches the door sill gets past the seals, and an empty box will float and travel if it gets deep enough. Site it high, restrain it properly, and do not treat it as protection from water.
Worth knowing
Site access, inductions and offloading
Very little in Hedland gets delivered to a place with no gate on it. Port, rail, mine and major construction sites all run their own access systems, and the delivery works or fails on that paperwork being done before the truck leaves the last town. What we need from you is the site contact and their phone number, the gate the truck should present at, gate hours, induction and permit requirements, PPE expectations, any escort or wash-down requirement, and whether the site wants to offload with its own crane or telehandler. Sites frequently prefer to do it themselves, which is fine and often faster, but it changes which truck we send.
For town addresses in South Hedland and Wedgefield the questions are more ordinary: overhead services, gate width, what is on the other side of the fence, and whether there is anywhere for a truck to stand without blocking a heavy vehicle route. The single most useful thing you can send is photographs. One from the street looking in, one along the length of the approach, one of the exact spot, and if there is a gate, one of the gate with something in shot for scale. Those four pictures answer more questions than a page of description and they get the job planned right the first time, which out here is worth a great deal more than it is in a capital city.
What delivery to Port Hedland costs
We do not publish a delivery rate for this area, because a straightforward industrial drop and a tight residential one on the same street are not the same job. Ring and you will get an exact number.
Ring us, tell us what is going in it and what the access is like, and we will tell you which grade and which truck the job needs before anyone talks money.
Other areas we deliver to
We also deliver to South Hedland, Karratha, Newman, Roebourne, Marble Bar and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Port Hedland
How long does a container take to reach Port Hedland?
Plan on two to four weeks from order to on the ground in the dry, and allow more between November and April. The distance is only part of it. The date is really set by when a truck runs north with room on the deck, and a container that travels on a scheduled run rather than a dedicated trip is a very different proposition. Wet season adds road closures at the river crossings that nobody can plan around. If you have a shutdown or a site start date, order well ahead of it and tell us the date at the enquiry.
Can you still deliver during the wet or cyclone season?
Yes, but with honest caveats. Trucks run all year. What stops them is the highway going under at the Turner, Yule or De Grey crossings, which happens most wets and can hold a load up for days, and a cyclone warning, which shuts down port operations and site craning entirely. We will not give you a hard date in February that we cannot stand behind. What we will do is tell you where your container is, what the road is doing, and what the realistic window looks like. Ordering before the wet is always the better plan.
Does a container need to be tied down in Port Hedland?
If it is staying on a site through cyclone season, it should be restrained, and on a workplace that is not optional. A container is heavy and low, which helps, but an empty one has a lot of side area and is not immovable. The usual approach is chaining or bolting to cast-in anchors, screw piles or a designed footing, on a level compacted pad. The important part is that the restraint detail comes from an engineer working to the local wind region. We can tell you what other Pilbara sites do, but we do not certify tie-downs and would not pretend to.
Can you deliver to a mine site or a station beyond Hedland?
Regularly. For a mine site we need the site contact, the gate, gate hours, induction and permit requirements, and whether the site prefers to offload with its own gear, which many do. For a station run out toward Marble Bar or Nullagine, the question is the track: floodways, sand, and how far it is from the last sealed road. In the wet those tracks are frequently closed and there is nothing to be done about it but wait. Give us the honest description at the quote stage and we will plan the right truck and a realistic date.
Get a price
Tell us where it is going and what it is for
We deliver to Port Hedland and the surrounding district. Tell us what is going in it and what the access is like, and you will get a price with the cartage worked out. Every enquiry answered within one business day.
Or skip the form and ring us — 1300 467 776, Mon-Fri 7:30am-5pm, Sat 8am-12pm