Over the past 12 months, Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers (KIPT) has worked to secure diversified markets for dry product, that is, logs produced from forests that have been damaged by bushfire, beyond the tolerance of traditional export markets.
KIPT has been advised by Senator Jonathan Duniam, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries, that its application to the Forestry Recovery Development Fund has been successful.
The $5.5 million grant will support development of a biomass pellet plant on Kangaroo Island, capable of accepting the fire-damaged logs and any other logs that cannot be sold into export markets.
The plant would be at the Company’s timber processing hub at Timber Creek, a site which was damaged by the fires of last Summer. The pellets would be exported using the chip-handling facility at the proposed Kangaroo Island Seaport at Smith Bay.
Due diligence work on the pellet proposal continues with project partners and KIPT aims to have internal approval for the project in the first half of 2021, subject to regulatory consent.
Benefits for Kangaroo Island would include a small-scale biomass power plant to support the pellet mill, which is capable of dispatching base-load power to the electricity grid. Biomass-generated electricity is carbon neutral, supporting Kangaroo Island’s brand values as a tourist destination and provider of high-quality agricultural produce.
Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers manages a wholly-owned portfolio of hardwood and softwood forestry plantations, growing on former agricultural land on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
