By PHILIP HOPKINS
MORE jobs are likely to be lost at the Maryvale Paper Mill, where more than 300 workers have already been made redundant as the parent company, Opal, continues a major shutdown to transition to a packaging paper manufacturer.
White paper production – the well-known Reflex copy paper brand – ceased before Christmas, 2023.
“This unfortunate situation has led to more than 300 redundancies to-date at Opal,” a company spokeswoman said.
“Employment numbers at Maryvale mill have not yet reached a settled level as Opal continues to work through a range of challenges during this difficult transition.”
The Maryvale mill is being reconfigured from three pulp plants to two pulp plants after EPA Victoria approved the process in January. The Continuous Kraft Pulp Mill (CKM) is being converted from eucalypt to pine as a key element for the mill transition to 100 per cent brown packaging.
The CKM will take over the production of pine pulp from the Batch Mill, which in turn will be de-commissioned. Opal says the CKM’s pulping technology will improve product quality, process stability and efficiency.
“The conversion will also reduce environmental impacts including water and energy usage as well as odour sources,” the spokeswoman said.
Opal will mainly use pine pulp, combined with some hardwood pulp, to produce the brown packaging. The hardwood, previously sourced from native hardwood residues, comes from HVP Plantations. HVP is the only supplier of eucalypt wood to the Maryvale site.
Now, the HVP pulp wood is processed through the Neutral Sulphate Semi Chemical (NSSC) pulp mill.
“The mill doesn’t require additional eucalypt volumes to operate the NSSC mill,” the spokeswoman said.
Previously, the state government had an agreement to supply Australian Paper with 350,000 cubic metres of hardwood pulp annually from 2010-11 to 2029-30. Due to bushfires, third-party court challenges from environmentalists and political decisions, this was reduced to about 50,000 m3 before the industry closure on January 1, 2024.
The plant changes began last month. Opal said the successful implementation of these changes would underpin the future of the Maryvale site.
“Opal remains committed to achieving long-term, sustainable operations for the Maryvale site, in the interest of our team members, the environment and the community,” the company said.
The Maryvale mill processes more than 800,000 tonnes of pine annually and sources its pine logs from HVP Plantations in Gippsland. HVP processes pine logs from its harvesting operations to produce a range of products. It delivers the contracted quantities of pulp log quality wood directly from the harvest site to the Maryvale mill.
The spokeswoman said HVP was the key strategic long-term wood supply partner for the Maryvale mill into the future. In 2022, HVP received $120 million from the state government to buy private land in Gippsland on which to establish new softwood (pine) forestry plantations. It was the key project to fuel Victoria’s transition from native forest to a plantations-based industry.
HVP will also contribute a similar amount to buy the land, prepare the sites and plant and care for the trees, creating a total investment of $240 million. The deal involves HVP establishing about 14,450 hectares of new pine plantations over the next 10 years.
For further information, visit the website opalanz.com/news-media/
