Wheels turn at $20m Albany terminal

Plantation forestry companies Timbercorp Ltd and Integrated Tree Cropping Ltd expect to export one million tonnes of eucalypt woodchips a year through the new $20 million Albany chip terminal.

Exports from the terminal, which was officially opened last week, to Japanese pulp and paper manufac-turers is expected to be worth $2 billion over the next decade, with about 500,000 tonnes to be exported this year.

Timbercorp executive director John Vaughn said the terminal would be shipping at the capacity rate in the next two to three years.

“I think we are heading for a record run coming out of the Albany port over the next couple of years,” he said. “We actually began shipments out of Albany last July and used a temporary loading facility.

“There have been five shipments to date in excess of 200,000 tonnes.”

Mr Vaughn said the first shipment using the new configuration left last week, with another one scheduled for late this week or early next week.

Timbercorp, ITC and their joint venture marketing company, Plantation Pulpwood Exports, have woodchip supply agreements with Japanese trading houses Marubeni and Sojitz, which have supply arrangements with Japan’s largest pulp and paper companies, Oji Paper and Nippon Paper industries.

ITC envisages its partnership with Sojitz will result in approximately two million green metric tonnes, or more than $200 million worth of woodchips at current prices, will be exported to Japan over the next 10 years.

Mr Vaughn said Timbercorp and ITC’s price per dry tonne of woodchips was settled at $179 last year, higher than Australia’s market leader in woodchip exports, Tasmania-based Gunns Ltd which set its price at $176 a tonne.

If competitors, including those in Chile and South Africa, lifted their prices per tonne, Mr Vaughn said, Timbercorp and ITC shouldn’t rule out doing the same.

“We have a shipping advantage here and we are competitively priced with those people,” he said. “Whatever they get, we should get.”

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.

The Timbercorp-ITC joint venture, Plantation Pulpwood Terminals, is the owner, operator and builder of the woodchip export terminal, which will receive, screen, stockpile and ship the one million tonnes per year.

The woodchips from Timbercorp and ITC’s combined 210,000 hectares throughout Australia is marketed by their joint venture company Plantation Pulpwood Exports and carry the internationally recognised Forest Stewardship Council certification.

• The reporter travelled to Albany courtesy of PPE.