Industries we service

Pastoral

• The NT supports 1.7 million cattle - about 6.4% of Australia’s entire cattle herd.
• The Territory’s pastoral sector is worth in excess of $250 million - contributing 1.5% of total GSP. It operates on 216 properties and directly employs more than 1600 people.
• Our cattle producers turn off half a million head a year from 620,000 sq km of first-class grazing country - that’s 55% of the NT landmass.
• More than 40% of Australia’s South East Asian live cattle exports come from the Territory.
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Horticulture

• NT horticulture has been a boom industry - worth just $300,000 in early 1980s but now more than $90 million. It’s one of our three leading agricultural business sectors.
• Mangoes, table grapes, Asian vegetables, cut flowers and nursery products are the economic backbone of our horticulture industry.
• A myriad smaller crops face bright prospects as quality products filling niche domestic and world markets. The list includes rambutans, bananas, citrus, dates and melons.  
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Mixed farming

• The NT’s principal field crops - cereals, hay and pasture seed - reap $12.5 million a year for the local economy.
• More than 53,000 tonnes of hay worth $10 million are produced each year on mixed farms in the Katherine, Douglas Daly and Darwin rural districts.
• The Territory’s fledgling farm forestry sector is worth $3 million a year.
• A multi-million dollar Melville Island commercial forestry venture recently exported its first trial shipment of 14,000 cubic metres of pine and eucalyptus sawlogs to Vietnam, Indonesia and China.
• Increasing mixed farm diversification into intensive irrigated horticulture has resulted in large quantities of Top End melons and other cucurbit crops selling in niche domestic winter markets. 
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Fisheries

• The annual NT wild harvest fisheries catch generates about $33 million in annual revenue. In 2004 shark, mud crab and barramundi were our most valuable wild harvest fisheries.
• NT aquaculture production is worth about $30 million a year and is forecast to exceed $120 million by 2010. In 2004 the most lucrative aquaculture sectors were pearling and barramundi farming.
• Production in the NT commercial farmed barramundi sector sky-rocketed by 400% from 2002 to 2004. The harvest value now exceeds $9.4 million.
• In 2004 the department’s Darwin Aquaculture Centre Hatchery produced over 1.8 million juvenile barramundi to aid aquaculture and recreational pursuits.
• The world-acclaimed Genetag hook device is a significant DRDPIFR technology breakthrough. It allows stress-free tagging of fish species for accurate monitoring and assessment of fish stocks, with dramatically better survival rates.
• Close to one in two Territorians wets a line every year, and with visiting recreational fishers $35 million a year is spent in pursuit of the sport.
• Around 350,000 barramundi are caught by recreational fishers in the NT each year. This accounts for more than half the total national catch of 677,000 of this prized fish.
• Fisheries works with coastal Indigenous communities and industry to identify and progress projects that enhance regional economic development. Projects primarily focus on aquaculture activities, ranging from small scale projects such as the growing out of mud crabs and trepang ranching, to large partnership projects such as sea cage barramundi farming on the Tiwi Islands.
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Minerals and Energy

• Mining is the NT’s biggest and most economically valuable industry. It produces goods worth an annual $2.3 billion and accounts for 20% of GSP.
• Oil, bauxite, manganese, lead/zinc, uranium and gold are our leading mineral money-makers.
• The NT boasts the world’s second largest manganese mine (GEMCO), a major world zinc, lead and silver ore body (McArthur River) and Australia’s third largest bauxite mine (Gove).
• Australia’s biggest industrial developments all in the Northern Territory. The $1.6 billion Conoco Phillips Liquid Natural Gas plant, Australia’s second largest gas hub, and the Alcan refinery in Gove’s $2 billion expansion and many others.
• The NT is ranked eighth in the world in terms of place to do exploration business, alluding to the highly regarded think-tank the Fraser Institute of Canada.
• The Timor Sea’s $3 billion Bayu-Undan gas field with petroleum liquids yields an average 100,000 barrels of condensate and LPG a day.
• The NT economy is on track to reap huge benefits from Timor Sea gas coming onshore for LNG and helium production.
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