The mill that never was…

Dave Groves

Why not just convince everyone that they want to build a pulp mill and will need more trees to feed it on the pretext of “jobs” and “value adding”?

MIS would keep the investors excited and locked into land conversion and the Premier’s drought proofing plan would be the icing on the cake for thirsty “supersuckers”.
THE PAST four years have been fairly intense and definitely not how I envisaged my time consumed.

For sometime now I have pondered the still proposed pulp mill and all it represents.

It started in earnest with a visit from Bob Gordon from the now evaporated, once heavily publicly funded “Pulp Mill Task Force” who answered my questions about the pulp mill proposal, wood supply and emissions etc.

There was enough information given in that conversation to set the alarm bells ringing.

Soon following were the heady days where TRAC (Tamar Residents Action Committee) came into being and from then, the Tasmanian groundswell has grown to encompass National and International bodies and individuals.

So many have sought to reach some sort of an understanding as to what is actually being proposed.

This has been through worldwide investigations, scientific research, expert advice and endless trolling of government and proponents’ documentation, which has culminated in submissions now on public record.

Petitions for “arms length” scrutiny have failed to sway any who are charged with the care of community.

Many vested interest groups have been herded to the fray, no doubt seduced by the empty promises of “jobs” and “security”.

So many times the proponent has told all and sundry that the project must go forward, it must succeed to secure any future for the shrinking collection of forestry workers.

I can’t see the logic in a pulp mill, not from the proponents view point.

Ok, so we now know that they buy the native forest from the people of Tasmania through the soft bellied Forestry Tasmania for around $15 per tonne.

Gunns sells it for say around $150 per tonne.

Now as FT basically operates in the red and Gunns make quite a few million past that, it is fair to assume that they have latched on to a great deal.

So what do Gunns do for their glorious dinero?

Basically not a great deal, in fact their operation is a “no brainer.” They have contractors chop and deliver our forests to them. They have some land, a chipper at the ready and a conveyor to whip the chips onto Asian bound freighters.

No big outgoings, in fact the main expense it would seem would be the transport of the eucalypts to the above mentioned chippers.

A smart business operator would keep squeezing contractors until there were just a few players… then squeeze a bit harder till there was just one. That operator would be locked in, set up with mountains of expensive equipment and be basically squeezed into a corner now at the beck and call of the proponent.

But I digress. There has always been an aim to increase woodchip volumes and the proposed pulp mill is the ideal furphy to achieve this goal.

Let’s face it, there hasn’t been any vast amounts of proponent dollars lavished on this proposal; in fact a heap has poured from the public coffers in salivating anticipation of the belching behemoth.

So now I am getting closer to my point.

The proponent has kept cutting swathes of forest and sending them offshore while our money goes to support this paralysing paradigm.

Just check the $60 million being invested on “Pulp Highway One” (the East Tamar Highway) for starters, perhaps the Meander Dam for seconds?

Four tonnes of woodchips equals one tonne of air dried pulp. Now prices fluctuate, but they receive roughly the same dosh for a tonne of pulp as they do for four tonnes of our forests.

Sounds good, but there is the $2 Billion they have to spend to make the pulp.

Why would they?

Why not just convince everyone that they want to build a pulp mill and will need more trees to feed it on the pretext of “jobs” and “value adding”?

In this way they could basically double revenue from woodchipping without precariously hocking the company.

When the project eventually becomes “untenable” the Greens would take the rap as usual and the proponent could even sell their project off the plan to the Chinese or any other overseas investor and they would still make barrows of cabbage; basically business as usual times two.

MIS would keep the investors excited and locked into land conversion and the Premier’s drought proofing plan would be the icing on the cake for thirsty “supersuckers”.

Has the project site changed hands from Rio Tinto as it was to have been on January the 10th?

Has the Gunns board given the official nod?

Has Gunns secured the dollars to make their adventure in to the unknown happen?

Will the $1 Million per day loss show up on the company profit/loss?

Stay tuned as the show continues on its merry path……