TIMBER companies are expecting the export of woodchip and logs through the port of Portland to at least double over the next few years as demand picks up and more plantations reach harvest stage.
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Australian Bluegum Plan-tations Green Triangle regional manager Mark Diedrichs said he expected the volume of timber going through the port to reach 3.5 million tonnes a year.
He said demand was expected to increase as the Australian dollar fell in value and Asian economies picked up.
Another major south-west woodchip processor, South West Fibre, expects the big anticipated surge in timber harvesting and transport could create between 300 and 400 jobs.
South West Fibre manager Steve Walker said more training was needed to provide extra skilled operators in timber harvesting and haulage, from truck drivers through to fitters and turners.
He said more government investment was also needed in the road network to cope with the increase in timber traffic.
Both Mr Walker and Mr Diedrichs were among south-west timber industry representatives to outline the industry’s expected future growth to the federal opposition’s forestry spokesman Richard Colbeck when he visited Portland earlier this week
Mr Diedrichs said the timber industry in the Green Triangle area, which extends from western Victoria across to the south-east of South Australia, had been through tough times in recent years with the collapse of bluegum companies such as Timbercorp and Great Southern but had since consolidated under new ownership and faced a bright future.
He said many of the bluegum plantations, which presently comprised about 170,000 hectares across the Green Triangle region, had been planted during the past 13 years and were ready to harvest.
A push to expand export markets, particularly in China, coupled with the increase in supply, would fuel the big increase in throughput anticipated at Portland, Mr Diedrichs said.
Mr Walker said there was sufficient timber supply in the Green Triangle to support an annual throughput of more than three million tonnes at Portland for at least 10 years.
He said South West Fibre’s woodchip mill at Myamyn, north of Heywood, had been steadily increasing its production since it opened in 2009.
Mr Walker said some of the bluegum plantations established in the Green Triangle since the bluegum boom began about 1998 had been ready for harvest for a number of years but companies had been waiting for the market to pick up.
