A natural disaster has become a business opportunity for a central Queensland forestry plantation. Source: ABC News
HQ Plantations, north of Rockhampton, suffered extensive damage when Tropical Cyclone Marcia crossed the coast in February.
Regional manager Andrew Dunn said it was a terrifying experience.
“It wasn’t really until the evening prior to the cyclone hit that we really understood what was heading our way and of course we battened down the hatches prior to it,” he said.
“Unfortunately it became obvious the evening of the cyclone how much damage we were likely to face. We estimate about 80% of it was affected.”
But he said the disaster had prompted the fast-tracking of a new export deal with China.
“We’ve certainly had an interest in the Port of Gladstone for potential export operation for a while now and of course the cyclone pretty well accelerated the need to get things underway.
“We had a local market here before the cyclone and processing is still going on domestically but we do have surplus timber in central Queensland, over and above the domestic market.
“That’s where an export operation is ideally suited.”
Since the operation began in May, about 250,000 tonnes of logs have been harvested and transported to Gladstone for export as sawlog and woodchips.
Gladstone Ports Corporation chief executive Craig Doyle said the trade deal was a win for the region.
“There’s jobs there for the people loading the logs onto the ships, woodchip, you’ll see a very large pile, so yeah, it’s created some jobs out of a weather event,” he said.
“We’re always looking to put more trade through our port, it was our 100th year last year and we did 100 million tonnes, we have 39 major cargoes so the logs and wood chip have just added to that.
“A lot of people think we’re just a coal port, but we’re definitely not and we’re growing and looking for opportunities all that time.”
He said the operation had already made Gladstone the nation’s second-largest log export port, but that there was room for future growth.
