The new R120-million woodchip factory being built at the Durban harbour will start production this month as scheduled, but will attain the full output figure of 30 000 t a month only in February next year, Engineering News has been told.

The project is being implemented by NCT Durban Wood Chips, a joint venture between NCT Forestry Cooperative, with a 70% equity stake, and Zululand Chip Management Company, which owns the remainder of the shareholding.

NCT Durban Wood Chips commercial manager Ferdi Brauckmann says that, between now and January, production will be in the region of 20 000 t a month.

The new factory’s steady-state total production of 360 000 t/y of woodchips will be exported primarily to pulp and paper manufacturers in Japan.

Brauckmann says there are no immediate plans to raise production beyond 360 000 t/y.

This output level will represent an increase of about 9% on South Africa’s current woodchip exports of 4-million tons a year, which are shipped through three facilities in Richards Bay.

Although production at NCT Durban Wood Chips’ new factory, at the Maydon Wharf at the Durban harbour, starts this month, the first export consignment will only be shipped at the end of this year or in early 2005. Agriport, a company owned jointly by Viamax and South African Port Operations, is building a R30-million facility which will be used for loading the woodchips.

Agriport’s facility will be completed in March, and NCT Durban Wood Chips will use a temporary loading facility in the meantime. The new factory will create 50 direct jobs and between 1 000 and 1 500 others indirectly.

Its supply of timber will come mainly from NCT Forestry Cooperative’s members in Kwazulu-Natal.

The cooperative organisation boasts about 2 000 members, a third of whom are from previously-disadvantaged communities.

Most are based in Kwazulu-Natal, with the rest scattered in eastern Mpumalanga and the Eastern and Western Cape provinces.

NCT Forestry Cooperative is currently investigating the feasibility of a joint-venture project with Sweden’s Sodra Cell to produce 300 000 t/y of bleached, thermo, mechanical pulp (BCTMP) from eucalyptus wood in Richards Bay.

The ongoing study seeks to establish the financial and economic viability of the project, as well as its environmental soundness and the market acceptability of eucalyptus-based BCTMP.

BCTMP technology was developed in Canada, and eucalyptus-based BCTMP has not been produced commercially.

If the feasibility study, expected to be completed at the end of next year, produces favourable results, construction of the plant will start almost immediately, with commissioning taking place in 2007. NCT Forestry Cooperative and Sodra Cell will have equal stakes in the export-oriented venture. Sodra Cell is a subsidiary of the Sodra group and, like NCT Forestry Cooperative, is a co- operative organisation.