Gunns to build second Portland woodchip facility

An agreement is expected by the end of October and construction is anticipated to commence before the end of the year.

Gunns and POPL will finalise contractual arrangements and the design of the new facility over the next three months. 

POPL chief executive Scott Paterson said the selection of Gunns was the outcome of an extensive process following the demise of Great Southern and Timbercorp.  

“We called for expressions of interest and then asked 20 parties to submit proposals," Mr Paterson said. 

"Nine strong proposals were received and a comprehensive evaluation was done before we selected Gunns.

“We expect to be handling more than 3m tonnes of plantation-grown hardwood chips per annum from 2011 and currently the port can only handle one quarter of this volume. 

"Therefore we needed to urgently seek ways to increase our capacity to handle the estimated $300m in exports.

“Gunns will fund and operate the new facility." 

The new facility will join the existing woodchip facility at the Port of Portland which is operated by GrainCorp and South West Fibre, a joint venture between Midway of Geelong and Japanese trading house, Mitsui.