Ric Stowe’s The Griffin Group agreed early this month to investigate building a pulp mill at Collie but, as Mark Beyer reports, its real agenda is to build its energy division.
Ric Stowe’s The Griffin Group agreed early this month to investigate building a pulp mill at Collie but, as Mark Beyer reports, its real agenda is to build its energy division.
A PULP mill in the State’s South West has been the dream of successive Western Australian governments.
Bunnings had a close look at building a pulp mill a decade ago but decided not to proceed.
Now, The Griffin Group has agreed to conduct a feasibility study jointly with a Chinese industrial group, believed to be China International Tourism and Trade Company.
They have already conducted a scoping study on a $300 million pulp mill.
The proposed mill would process about 550,000 tonnes of plantation blue gums each year, and export 200,000t of pulp to overseas paper manufacturers.
Critically from Griffin’s perspective, the pulp mill would also be a major customer of its proposed power station at Collie.
Griffin is pursuing plans to build up to three power stations, collectively worth about $800 million.
If all of its energy plans come to fruition, it would become one of the largest electricity producers in the State, with capacity of nearly 600 megawatts.
It would also ensure a long-term future for its coal mining operations at Collie, which have traditionally been the group’s mainstay.
Griffin Energy’s executive general manager business development, Wayne Trumble, said attracting new industries to Collie was a central part of its plan.
“Rather than producing electricity at Collie and shipping it to, say, Kwinana we are seeking to bring industry to Collie,” he said.
Mr Trumble said Griffin’s role in the pulp mill project would be logistics and energy supply, while its unnamed Chinese partner would be responsible for timber supply and processing.
One of the key issues is whether the South West region has sufficient plantation timber to supply a pulp mill, especially as major plantation owners such as WA Plantations Resources and Hansol PI are already signing woodchip export contracts.
“The original scoping study suggested there was plenty of resource for a plant of our size, at least to warrant moving from a scoping study to a feasibility study,” Mr Trumble said.
As well as targeting new industries such as the pulp mill, Griffin’s energy plans are based around Western Power’s own projections of growing electricity demand and the planned retirement of old power stations.
“In order to maintain their margin requirements, there is a reasonably hefty requirement,” Mr Trumble said.
“They will need an extra 1200 megawatts according to their own numbers.”
Griffin’s energy plans involve building two coal-fired stations around Collie and a wind farm north of Perth.
The first leg of its energy plan is tied to Western Power’s power procurement process, which has suffered repeated delays. (See comment, page 13.)
Griffin was one of 13 groups that lodged expressions of interest early last year to build a new base load power station to supply up to 330 megawatts of electricity.
Mr Trumble said the company was proposing a plant with a capacity of 360 to 380 megawatts and planned to sell the surplus capacity into the deregulated electricity market.
Griffin has partnered with Mitsui to bid for the base load power station, which would cost more than $500 million.
GRIFFIN’S ENERGY PLAN
n 360MW baseload power station for Western Power.
n 130MW Bluewater power station.
n 80MW Emu Downs wind farm.
Mr Trumble said Mitsui had a strong track record in the field, having been the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor for two “super critical” power stations recently built in Queensland.
The second leg of Griffin’s energy plan is the 130MW Bluewater power station, which has a budget of $150 million.
“Bluewater would fill existing [energy] requirements and be used to attract new businesses to the Collie area,” Mr Trumble said.
Griffin plans to submit a proposal to the Environmental Protection Authority next month for the coal-fired thermal station, which Mr Trumble said would have the same efficiency as the existing Collie A power station.
The third leg of Griffin’s energy plan is an 80MW wind farm at Emu Downs, a property north of Cervantes already owned by group subsidiary WR Carpenter Agriculture Pty Ltd.
The wind farm, with an estimated cost of $160 million, would be jointly developed with Queensland government-owned energy producer Stanwell Corporation, which already operates two wind farms. Griffin is bidding to build the wind farm under a renewable energy program being run by Western Power.
Griffin seems to be facing surprisingly little competition under the program, which initially involves Western Power buying up to 90,000 Renewable Energy Certificates a year, equivalent to 30MW of energy, from green energy projects.
Early last year, Western Power said it had received 13 submissions of interest in this program. It subsequently invited eight groups to submit bids but only some proceeded.
A Western Power spokesman refused to disclose how many bids were lodged but insisted there was a “quality field”.
Western Power is currently evaluating the bids and is also seeking expressions of interest in supplying a further 100,000 RECs.
Like its coal projects, Griffin is looking beyond the requirements of Western Power for its wind farm.
“We are planning to build 80MW on the expectation of deregulation,” Mr Trumble said.
“As the market deregulates and becomes a trading market, there will be opportunities to sell into that.”
