Plantation forestry companies Timbercorp and Integrated Tree Cropping today launched its $20 million export woodchip facility at Albany in Western Australia.
The Albany chip terminal was built by Timbercorp-ITC joint venture company, Plantation Pulpwood Terminals, which will also operate the facility.
At the launch, PPT director John Ipsen said the plant had the capacity to export one million tones of eucalypt woodchips a year, and significantly enhanced Australia's export capability in eucalypt wood fibre.
"There is immediate capacity to take 100 trucks per day which will double over time. Tthe first ship to leave from the new terminal sailed last week, with the next to depart on March 10," he said.
Woodchip shipments started from Albany last July using a temporary unloading and screening plant, while the new facility was built.
Timbercorp, ITC and their joint venture marketing company, Plantation Pulpwood Exports, have woodchip supply agreements with Marubeni and Sojitz which, in turn, have supply arrangements with Oji and Nippon - Japan's largest pulp and paper companies.
PPE markets export woodchips from ITC and Timbercorp's combined 210,000 hectares of plantation in WA, in the Green Triangle of south-west Victoria and south-east South Australia.
ITC also has an expanding plantation base in Queensland.
ITC chief executive James Neville Smith said the Albany port investment showed ITC's commitment to developing strategic infrastructure to underpin its plantation business across Australia.
"With plantation-grown woodchips from Australia having distinct advantages in Asian
markets, ITC's strategy is to ensure our investors are provided the best opportunity to capitalise on the quality and market proximity of our plantations to those markets," Mr Neville Smith said.