This article looks at the BIG companies in Australia associated with woodchipping. The discussed companies are:
Boral produces a wide range of building and construction materials, such as bricks, roof tiles, concrete and plaster board. Its activities are concentrated in Australia (which accounted for 80% of the group's 1993 sales), but its operations in the UK, Germany, Poland, and the US are likely to grow as the world's economy picks up.
Boral's building and construction materials division generates about 76% of the group's revenue and 74% of the profit. But its energy division is expanding - Boral is the second-largest onshore oil and gas operator in Australia after buying Sagasco in 1993 for $800 million. In 1993 the energy division - which is a big supplier of LPG to customers in Australasia and the Pacfic Islands - contributed 12% of Boral's net profits.
Boral employs 22,000 people at 1,000 locations in 23 countries. Its operating profit for 1994 was $424.7 million and its total assets $5.6 billion.
It is the second largest hardwood woodchip exporter in the world, exporting 947,000 tonnes p.a. from Tasmania and 500,000 from New South Wales. It has a sawmilling capacity of 622,000 cubic metres. Boral's timber interests contribute about 2% earnings before interest and tax - small enough for the company to end its native forest destruction.
SELP obtains all its woodchips from the native forests of the north coast of NSW. Boral contractors have logged a number of high conservation value forests in northern NSW, and it is estimated that it has control of 60% of the sawlog quotas from NSW public forests. Claims that it only takes sawmill "waste" have been proved to be false, and in 1992 Boral's timber operations manager Mr Gallagher admitted that the company was felling native forest - including old growth - solely for woodchips.
SELP plans to expand its operations to 500,000 tonnes per year. Twice in 1994, SELP obtained interim extensions to its current licence which were issued by Resource Minister David Beddall without seeking the consent of the Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency, or the Federal Environment Minister as required by Cabinet.
This company is 100% Japanese owned. Orginally split between the majority owner Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company Limited, based in Fuji City, Japan, and Itochu Corporation, Daishowa sold its 62.5% share to the company's founding Saito family division, Daishowa Ashitaka Rinsan Kogyo for $US49 million in 1990. Just who benefited from this sale, and how, is not known.
Daishowa imports woodchips and pulp from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Finland, Portugal, Thailand, Russia and the US.
Daishowa was ruled for three decades by the dictator-like billionaire Ryoei Saito. Under Saito, an art collector who in 1990 bought a Renoir painting for 11.9 billion yen and a Van Gogh for 12.5 billion yen (the highest prices ever paid for paintings), Daishowa amassed huge debts. Saito resigned in 1994 after being arrested for bribery. The current Daishowa president and chairman are the son and brother, respectively, of Saito. In September 1993 its total assests stood at Y635.1 billion (A$9 billion), its debts at Y478.9 billion (A$6.8 billion). According to the Taiga Rescue Network, "Daishowa is now in its weakest position ever, even receiving a SELL rating from the influential securities company Barclays de Zoete Wedd."
Established in Eden in 1967, Harris Daishowa has been the driving force behind the logging of thousands of hectares of old growth and wilderness forests in Southeast NSW, and Eastern Gippsland, Victoria. In 1994 the company exported 893,521 tonnes of woodchips and reduced its federal export licence from 950,000 tonnes per year to 900,000, reflecting the then sluggish Japanese pulp and paper market. The company exports 80% of NSW woodchips.
Areas of high conservation value logged on behalf of the company include the Coolcngubra Wilderness, nominated in 1988 under the NSW Wilderness Act. Daishowa's operations extended throughout SE NSW, and increasingly, into East Gippsland. The NSW government recently ectrenched this continued onslaught by Daishowa in the south east through "Resource Security" legislation, guaranteeing timber industry access to 59,000 cubic metres of sawlog and 504,000 tonnes of pulp wood annually. The company is now looking to commence export of woodchips from its Eden woodchip mill to India, and has begun negotiations with Daishowa's Bombay office.
This Tasmanian company has hardware and timber outlets throughout the state, and its hardwoods are sourced from logging operations throughout the state. Until recently North Broken Hill had a 40% share in the company, but this has now declined substaintially.
It is also the ultimate holding company of Kauri Timbers, based in Smithton in the state's north west. Another related entity, Romcke Specialised Woods sells a wide range of imported tropical and temperate rainforest timbers.
Gunns, along with North Forest Products will be one of the main beneficiaries from wet eucalypt forest logging operations in and around Australia's largest area of rainforest, the Tarkine, in Tasmania's north west.
In 1994, the company obtained permission from Federal Resources Minister David Beddall to export 200,000 tonnes of its "sawmill redidue" as woodchips to Japan, which may result in the construction of another chip mill in the north west. It has indicated a wish to ultimately chip 475,000 tpa.
Midway Forest Products exports eucalypt woodchips from Corio Bay in Geelong, Victoria. They source their woodchips from over 80 sawmills throughout Victoria and Southern New South Wales (as far north as Tumut). Currently they have a federal export licence through the Department of Primary Resources to export 313,000 tonnes of woodchips per year sourced only from "sawlog residues and silvicultural thinnings", although Midway is also chipping whole logs.
Midland are the main company currently responsible for the clearfelling of the Wombat State Forest, near Ballarat. The company also sources some 69,000 tonnes of its quota from the forests of the Central Highlands. Midway are also involved in plantation development.
The Otways were the major source of Midway's timber during the 1980's. But since 1989 with the establishment of Midland Logging Company the Wombat State Forest has been increasingly targetted. Midway and the multinational CSR, who have a particle Board Plant at Bacchus Marsh have helped strip the Wombat. Speculation is mounting as to where Midway will next source their woodchips; East Gippsland could well be a potential supply region.
Midway are managed by ex-Geelong Department of Conservation and Environment boss, Malcolm McDougall. McDougall has major shares in Midland Logging Company Pty Ltd. McDougall also has shares in Boral managed through Perpetual Trustees in Tasmania. Midland deals almost exclusively with Midway.
NBH's subsidary North Forest Products is the world's largest exporter of hardwood chips, and holds a licence of 1,878,000 tonnes per annum, divided between Longreach, on the Tamar River, northern Tasmania (1,065,000tpa) and at Triabunna, southern Tasmania (813,000 tpa). Almost all woodchips are exported to Japan to Nippon Paper Industries, New Oji and Mitsubishi. Other related entites include Australian Forest Holdings and Tamanian Pulp and Forest Holdings (TPFH).
In 1993 NBH retained its woodchip mills from its former sudsidary, Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, after selling its pulp and paper manufacturing operations to Amcor for $400 million. APPM and its unions had become embroiled in a bitter large-scale strike in 1992 over plans by the company to remove dozens of over-award agreements changes to tradtional work practices and the increasing use of contracted labour.
This Maryborough-based company, owned by Hyne and Son (previously operating on Fraser Island), is currently pushing for a licence to export some 140,000 tonnes of woodchips annually.
This source area would be large - stretching from Coffs Habour to Rockhampton. Plans for export woodchipping of native forests in Qld are a new - and worrying - development.
Based in Perth, Western Australia, this company operates a woodchip mill in Manjimup and an export facility at Bunbury. It has a federal export licence of 900,000 tpa although in 1992 exports totalled 830,000 tonnes.
The company has recieved active encouragement from WA's Liberal Government to establish $1.9 billion worth of plantation and native forest based pulp and paper projects in south west WA, including two mills consuming 690,000 tpy and two 200,000 fine paper machines.
The state government has indicated that it will introduce "Resource Security" legislation to guarantee acces to WA's forests if the company builds a pulp mill. Bunnings currently relies on forest resources made avaliable through Conservation and Land Management (CALM).
Approximately 1,500-2,000 ha of Karri/Marri forest are clearfelled in WA every year - 85% of which ends up as woodchips - while 15,000 ha of Jarrah forest are intensively logged to provide Marri woodchips. It is estimated that less than 180,000 ha of these forests remain.
With a sales revenue of $517 million for 1992, Bunnings was 47% owned by Wesfarmers, but was subject to a 100% takeover bid by the agro industrial mining giant late last year. It has a number of business interests including sawmilling, hardware, roofing and metal frames. Its sales revenue from its wood products division for 1993 totalled $195.1 million. CALM and Bunning are now seeking to sell off the last of West Australia's unprotected Jarrah forests and have promoted forest products in Sweden, Scandinavia, Holland, US and UK. In Japan, it has entered into a trade partnership with the multinational Mitsui to sell Jarrah for decking and bridges. Wesfarmers Bunnings currently produces 110,000 cu metres of sawn hardwood timber from 8 sawmills located in SW WA and the company also owns 19,000 ha of native forest. The forestry division of Wesfarmes contributes 10% of total profit, and market analysts have calculated that the withdrawal of woodchip licences would have cost the company up to 5% of its net profits, and continued market uncertainty has made the Bunnings takeover less attractive.
Based in Greenbushes, WA Whittakers is a Malaysian-owned sawmilling company that markets its "residual" woodchips through a subsidary company, Southern Plantations Chip Company. The company relies entirely on its forestry activities for its income, with half of its profits received from woodchips.
It has a current federal export licence of 110,000 tpa, but there are plans for a new native forest based woodchip mill that could initially process 500,000 tonnes of woodchips a year. The primary source for these woodchips will be the ever-decreasing karri, marri and forests of SW WA, 80% coming from state forests, the rest from private land.
