An NZ$60 million “super-mill” is expected to re-establish Rotorua as the “wood-processing capital of New Zealand” when Red Stag Timber builds a new world-scale sawmill on its Waipa site in Rotorua. Source: The New Zealand Herald
The sawmill will be the largest in the southern hemisphere.
Work has already started on the state-of-the-art super-mill, which will have an annual log input capacity of 1.2 million tonnes and run on two shifts.
Chief executive Marty Verry said the plant would have the latest sawmilling, scanning and optimisation equipment, which would tie into the mill’s current back-end bins and stacker.
It will be operational from mid-2016 and lift the company’s annual output from 450,000cu/m currently to 700,000cu/m by 2019.
“This will drive efficiency and cost-reduction,” Mr Verry said. “This new sawmilling technology, along with our existing kiln drying and treatment technology, is far ahead of anything currently used in New Zealand, and the results are straighter, dryer, stronger and more dimensionally stable timber for our customers and their customers.”
Mr Verry said that in the longer term the new mill would create more jobs at the company. It would also make Rotorua the “wood-processing capital of New Zealand”.
He said the investment was a vote of confidence by the board in the Red Stag management team and staff, who had “earned the chance to make what will be a career-defining achievement”.
Red Stag would be looking to increase its share of the New Zealand structural timber market from 25% to more than 40%.
An estimated 25 sawmills have closed in New Zealand in the past 10 years, as larger more efficient operations have expanded.
“It’s a long-term trend that we are determined to stay ahead of,” Mr Verry said. “I think we are probably the lowest-cost producer in Australasia now, but this investment will mean another step change reduction to our cost base, mainly through scale and getting more recovery and value from logs.”
Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick said she was thrilled with the news.
“It’s phenomenal,” she said. “We want to see so much more wood processing, instead of seeing raw logs going to the port.”
The investment also means more chip residues, which Mr Verry said could either help underpin new investment in pulp and paper operations or potentially a new MDF plant.
