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Wandilo site identified for pellet plant

Posted on January 12, 2009, 7:07pm and updated on January 15, 2009 at 7:21 am

Developers of a planned $25m biomass fuel pellet plant have identified a Wandilo site for the project and hope to begin construction in May.

Plantation Energy business development manager Jarrod Waring said discussions with Forestry SA had identified the site, neighbouring the Van Schaik’s Bio Gro composting plant, and the company was now preparing to lodge planning approval documents.

“It’s our intention to begin that process and hopefully be able to start on development of that site in May this year with production beginning at the start of the last quarter of the year,” he said.

“The size of the investment we are looking at making is in the vicinity of $25m, directly employing 13 people with obvious indirect employment three or four times that in the local area.”

Mr Waring said the plant would operate constantly to produce 250,000 tonnes of pellets annually, which would be trucked to Portland for export to Europe to use alongside coal for industrial power generation.
The plant will use bluegum and pine harvest residue, boosting the timber and transport industries with further employment expected to be created through trucking 350,000 tonnes of raw materials from plantations annually and finished product on to Portland.

“Once sites are harvested for pulp wood we come in and collect leftover residues currently being left in the field or pushed into banks and burnt,” Mr Waring said, explaining the plant would convert the material into dense pellets for burning.

While the company has long-term agreements in place to sell its products, Mr Waring said it was hoped the pellets would also become popular in Australia, both for industrial power generation and domestic heating.
Although the company plans to use trucks for transport product to Portland, Mr Waring said a rail line ran alongside the site, providing a possible alternative freight option in future.

“The size of our project is not something that would kick-start the line, but added to other developments in the area it may be a possibility,” he
said.
Mr Waring said he hoped development applications for the Wandilo plant would be ready to submit to Grant District Council by the end of February.

Plantation Energy, which is about to begin production at a plant in Albany, Western Australia, plans to build a similar facility outside Heywood in south-west Victoria and another four around Australia through an US$80m agreement with global private equity firm Denham Capital.

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