Skip navigation

IRIS Tasmania  >  Resource Industry  >  Forestry  >  Supply  >  Processing

Forestry Processing

Tools:

Maps - Forestry

Maps - Transport

A majority of processing occurs within Tasmania with a number of native and plantation sawmills, woodchipping mills, veneer mills and Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) plants.

To establish a processing plant in Tasmania there are a number of planning processes involved, which are detailed in the Planning and Development section of this site.

See the IRIS Forestry map for details relating to processing sites in Tasmania.

Sawmills

Sawn timber is produced primarily for the domestic market and utilises both hardwood and softwood resources. Over the last two decades, the industry has undergone major changes, evolving from a producer of hardwood products to a predominant producer of softwood products. The percentage of sawn softwood increased from 34% to over 50% in 2003-04.

There are over 50 sawmills in Tasmania: 45 native forest mills producing around 64% of all sawnwood; and 6 plantation mills producing around 36% of sawnwood. Tasmania's wood processing mills vary greatly in size; the largest processing over a million cubic metres per annum and the smallest around 350m3 pa (See map for details).

Tasmania's softwood plantations have the potential to supply around 400,000m3 of sawlogs pa.

The native forest sawmills operating in Tasmania produce paper, veneer, sawn wood, sleepers, and semi-processed wood products. These mills range in capacity from 1,000m3 to 150,000m3

In 2004, the Victorian-based company ITC Forestry invested $10 million to build a sawmill at the Southwood site in the Huon Valley. This mill has the capacity to process up to 50,000m3

The average value of native saw, ply and veneer log is nearly 40% greater than other log products.

Woodchips

Based on the latest available data, Tasmania is the largest exporter of woodchips in Australia, accounting for 43% of national woodchip exports by value in 1999-00. It was reported by the Port Authorities that Tasmania's woodchip exports in 2002-03 exceed 5.140 million green tonnes.

Woodchips are produced predominately for the Japanese market. The Japanese pulp and paper industry is the second largest in the world and dependent on the imported woodchips. For this reason economic growth in Japan and Australia's share of the Japanese woodchip market are key drivers of Tasmania's woodchip industry.

Forestry Tasmania and Gunns Limited are currently the biggest industry players, with woodchip production and export being Gunns' major business activity, and Gunns operating four woodchip export ports in Tasmania.

Forestry Tasmania currently sells between 1.4 and 1.8 mt per year of logs unsuitable for the production of solid timber products for pulp and paper production in Tasmania and for woodchip export.

Auspine's sawmilling and preservative treatment plant in Scottsdale chips radiata pine for export on a smaller scale.

Other wood product manufacturing

Hardwood Sawlogs

In 2004, the Victorian-based company ITC Forestry invested $10 million to build a sawmill at the Southwood site in the Huon Valley. This mill has the capacity to process up to 50,000 cubic metres of regrowth hardwood sawlogs annually for furniture, tabletops, timber flooring and architraves.

Softwood Sawlogs

The softwood (mainly radiata pine) structural industry in Tasmania includes Auspine Limited and Forest Enterprises Australia, which operate sawmills in Scottsdale and Bell Bay

Veneer

Gunns Limited is the largest decorative veneer producer in Australia, with two mills in Tasmania; one at Somerset and the other at Boyer. A smaller veneer mill is located at Smithton and is owned by Britton Brothers. Combined, these three mills process about 22,000m3 of veneer a year. Most of this timber is exported to mainland Australia or overseas.

Ta Ann Tasmania, a joint venture between Forestry Tasmania and Malaysian company Ta Ann Holdings, opened a new rotary peel veneer mill in May 2007 in Geeveston in the Huon Valley. The $32 million mill is expected to generate 100 full-time jobs.

Other Products

Timber sold to processors is processed into a variety of products, including timber for house frames, floors, veneer and furniture. However, this process produces a large amount of wood fibre by-products which can be up to 60% of all timber entering a facility. These by-products are not wasted and are utilised by processors to produce energy to run their facilities, sold to other processors to produce value-adding products such as paper or MDF, or exported as semi-processed wood products.

Paper and paper product manufacturing

Paper and paper product manufacturing includes newsprint, writing and printing paper, cardboard, paper board, wood pulp, as well as the manufacturing of solid and corrugated paperboard containers, paper bags and sacks, and other paper products such as insulation materials, tissue, toilet paper, trays, cartons and wallpaper.

PaperlinX and Norske Skog are the largest players in the paper and paper product manufacturing sector, operating Tasmania's three paper mills.

PaperlinX has mills located at Burnie and Wesley Vale, specialising in the production of specialty grade papers. The Burnie mill produces uncoated base paper which is coated at the Wesley Vale mill, together with small quantities of photocopy and printing paper. The Burnie paper mill has a capacity of 130,000 t, and the Wesley Vale mill has a capacity of 135,000 t.

Norske Skog owns the Boyer plant producing newsprint, as well as smaller quantities of specialty grade and directory paper. Annual production from the Boyer mill (Norske Skog) is around 290,000 t of newsprint and related grades. This represents about 40% of Australian consumption. The mill uses plantation radiata pine, regrowth eucalypt and recycled fibre.