Wesbeam opens $85m lumber facility

Western Australian company Wesbeam has officially launched its laminated veneer lumber product range onto the market with the opening of its $85 million operation at Neerabup Industrial Estate.

The company is the first to develop facilities at LandCorp-owned Neerabup, a 1,000-hectare site off Flynn Drive, north of Wanneroo.

Wesbeam manufactures high quality LVL from the Gnangara and Yanchep maritime pine plantations for use in heavy structural engineering applications as a replacement for hardwood timbers.

The man behind the project is timber industry veteran, majority shareholder, and former Wesfi chairman Denis Cullity, who has overseen construction of five major ‘greenfields’ factories in WA.

These include the Wespine sawmill and a particleboard plant in Dardanup, and a medium density fibreboard plant at Welshpool.

Wesbeam became an autonomous company in 2001 when publicly listed Wesfi was taken over.

Other shareholders include WA-based investment funds, private investors and the directors and management of Wesbeam.

Mr Cullity has retained most of the Wesfi management team, including CEO James Malone, who told WA Business News the Wesbeam facility covered 10ha of land and that the company had an option over an adjacent 5ha block.

“The construction industry is always looking for a cost-effective solution for their requirements, and as steel prices continue to rise, alternatives will be considered. Our product is a very real alternative,” Mr Malone said.

Wesbeam has a 25-year agreement with the state to buy plantation timber, but is also undertaking to put $1 million annually into planting its own trees.

“These plantings will assist in the Government’s program of reducing the salinisation of Western Australian farmlands, as well as developing our business,” Mr Malone said.

Sales and marketing manager Denis A Cullity said the demand for products had been high, with orders coming from high-volume distributors such as Independent Timbers, WA Timbers, Bunnings, and Cullity Timbers.

“We worked closely with some of Perth’s major builders when researching and developing our products to ensure that they would meet the needs of the WA market, and that research is now paying dividends,” he said.

Wesbeam has also signed agreements with Boral and PCH to distribute the company’s e-form product in WA, developed specifically for use in the production of concrete forms used in the construction industry.

Neerabup Industrial Estate will also be home to Mindarie Regional Council’s recently announced environmentally sustainable Waste Recovery Facility. It’s understood 20ha has been bought in the estate to house the facility.