A revived dredging program at a Gulf of Carpentaria port is expected to allow the export of at least 6,000 head of cattle this year.
Live exports from Karumba stalled last year after what was the world's largest open cut zinc mine finished operations and took the port's dredging program with it.
However, a new company has purchased Century Mine and taken up the maintenance of the shipping channel.
"We can go back to how we were operating before 2017 — it's a bloody godsend," Karumba Live Export manager Dean Bradford said.
The first dredge of the port was finished earlier this month and two ships laden with cattle have departed this year after only one in 2017.
"The first one was a dream, it would probably be the best shipment we've done for four years," Mr Bradford said.
"We are aiming at a minimum of two shipments a month, just depending on what the cattle situation is like at the moment.
"We're just going to keep doing cattle boats until the road gets closed from wet weather."
Pressure to move away from dredging
While the deeper shipping channel has been credited for a revival of business at the port, some pressure has been put on the industries to move away from dredging.
Carpentaria Shire Mayor Jack Bawden said with only six years of mining guaranteed at Century, more needed to be done to ensure the long-term future of the port.
"We'd be a whole lot better off if purpose-built vessels were actually utilised rather than bringing something in with deep drafts and all the rest of it," Cr Bawden said.
"It's a shallow port, it's always going to be a shallow port, dredging adds a whole lot of costs to any operation."
However, Dean Bradford said using purpose-built boats was easier said than done.
"When we didn't have the depths of the channel that we were chasing, we tried to source whatever ships we could," he said.
"There's not many ships out there that have the smaller number and a low draft; those ships aren't really around now."
Cattle hard to source
Despite most of the cattle properties surrounding Karumba breeding stock specifically for the live export market, Mr Bradford said it was still hard to fill boats.
He said competition from live export facilities in Townsville and Darwin were also struggling.
"Everyone's having issues sourcing certain lines of cattle," Mr Bradford said.
"Everyone's trying to tidy up first-round mustering and have probably already sold a fair swing of cattle.
"It's just tough at the moment sourcing the cattle."
