Partnerships

The Blue Gum plantation industry in the Great Southern region of Western Australia exported its first woodchips in March 2002.

Progress to this landmark was dramatic in the last quarter of 2001; the first Blue Gums were harvested, infrastructure projects involving a mill site, a rail extension, and port stockpile areas and ship loading facilities reached completion.

The projects are partnerships between some of the regions agricultural enterprises, the State Government, and Japanese investors. By 2007, wood chip exports could reach two million tonnes a year from Albany, earning up to $180 million annually.

Two companies drive these developments:

Albany Plantation Forestry Company of Australia Pty Ltd (APFL) is the grower company. It is a conglomerate comprising Japans Oji Paper (48 %), Itochu Corporation (29 %), Senshukai (13 %), Tohoku Electric Power (5 %) and NYK Line (5 %).

Albany Plantation Export Company Pty Ltd (APEC) is the harvesting and processing company. It is a joint venture between Oji (51 per cent) and Itochu (49 per cent). Initial export destinations include the port of Abaratsu in southern Japan. The adjacent paper mill at Nichinan is one of 17 operated by the Oji in Japan.

In developing a presence in the Great Southern, APFL and APEC adopted a policy of working with local organisations as contractors wherever possible.

Blue Gum plantations have prospered in the districts around Albany (above 600mm annual rainfall) since APFL undertook its first plantings in 1993. After the development of a woodchip mill, 14 kilometres from Albany, a rail connection to the port utilising part of the Great Southern Railway, stockpile and ship loading facilities, become visible evidence of the emergence of a major new industry for the region. The infrastructure development represents a $50 million adjunct to the lower Great Southern's extraordinary development in the past ten years of more than 130,000 hectares of Blue Gum plantations. It has become one of the regions major industries.