Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers (KIPT) has signed an exclusivity agreement with Mitsui, under which Mitsui will develop, maintain and operate a complete woodchip handling facility, subject to certain conditions, including development approval and the execution of final transaction documents.
The agreement grants Mitsui the exclusive right to develop a woodchip handling facility at KI Seaport. The agreement requires Mitsui to deliver and operate the facility at pre-agreed fees in order to maintain its exclusive rights.
The woodchip handling facility is proposed to include infrastructure capable of receiving, screening, stockpiling, sampling, and loading woodchips into bulk vessels for export from the KI Seaport. Mitsui already operates similar facilities at Bunbury in WA and in Portland, Victoria.
KIPT will pay a per-tonne fee to use the facility, which will revert to KIPT ownership after 10 years.
Central to the proposed materials handling facility is a state-of-the-art circular automatic stacker-reclaimer. This system operates on a first-in first-out basis, yielding quality advantages, and has a storage capacity of 80,000 green tonnes, greater than the capacity of the largest woodchip carrier vessel.
The stockpile can be built and reclaimed simultaneously, and the system has the capacity to manage multiple products, giving KPT the flexibility to export softwood or biomass-grade woodchips in addition to its core hardwood woodchip product.
Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers is Australia’s only listed timberland company. It manages a wholly-owned portfolio of hardwood and softwood forestry plantations, growing on former agricultural land on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
