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There is little published data on road transport costs of sugarcane. Data provided by industry indicates
that the average cost of transporting cane to the mill in NSW is about $5.00 to $7.00 per tonne. The
trucking distances are relatively short with an average trucking distance from pad to mill in NSW
about 27 km one way. In the Broadwater mill region the longest trip would be about 100 km one way.
Mallee System
Due to the geographic spread of mallee plantings, the average trucking distance to the processing
plant would be in excess of 100km. It is assumed that with development of the industry and greater
concentration of the resource with new planting, the average distance will decrease, but for several
years the industry will need to begin operations with the longer transport horizon.
Yu et al. (2009) estimated a road transport rate of woody chips of approximately $0.10 per green
tonne per km which was confirmed by several professional truck drivers in the wheatbelt for their
modelling. Recent communication with grain transport companies have confirmed 2011 prices in the
range of $0.10 to $0.12 per tonne per kilometre for distances in excess of 100km one way. An
important characteristic of grain transport is that the road trains do not normally need to be broken up
for loading or unloading, so terminal times are short.
The product most like whole tree biomass, wood chip, is an expensive product to transport compared
to grain. The industry standard cost is $0.17 to $0.18 per tonne per kilometre for pulp wood chip and
the difference from grain is due to the terminal time imposed upon wood chip transport by other
characteristics of the supply chain and historical factors.
Loading of chip trucks at the roadside is typically done by the chipper, as shown in Figure 3.14, and a
large chipper normally takes about 40-50 minutes to load a road train. Because the chipper is the most
expensive machine in the system (commonly about $800 per hour), there is often a small queue of
trucks at the chipper to ensure it is operating as continuously as possible.
Unloading over the rear by tipping or walking floors is the industry standard for wood chip and the
delivery points at ports are all set up for rear discharge trailers. Tipping can be either tipping trailers
or whole-truck tippers. No transport contractor is able to adopt side tipping because there are no
suitable side-delivery pits – a similar situation to that noted in relation to the sugar mills in NSW in
section 3.3.1. With two trailers, observations at a number of sites confirm that uncoupling and
reassembling road trains, plus separate tipping of each trailer, takes about 40 minutes. Shorter times
can be achieved with whole truck tippers if there is an attendant on hand to assist in
uncoupling/recoupling the rear trailer, but this system can only be justified by high volumes of
deliveries, for example at a chip export port facility.
In the case of mallee, margins will be relatively small, so chasing cost savings of only $2-$3 per tonne
is important, and there is the opportunity to start with a blank slate and avoid historical constraints.
Side loading is essential and if a containerised system is adopted this should be achievable with
swing-lift trailers. Unloading by side tipping should also be feasible with the same swing-lift
mechanism but it is essential that any biomass receival point be equipped with ramps and pits suitable
for side-tip deliveries. This does not exclude rear-tip deliveries at the same facilities.
Assuming short terminal times of 20 minutes each for loading and unloading, and referring to actual
contract prices from a range of transport operators, estimates have been modelled and are presented in
Table 3.5.
Table 3.5 Costs of road transport of mallee biomass with side loading and unloading
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