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incorporate harvested mallee as a feedstock will be important pre-cursors for the technologies for a
larger scale industry.
As the Industry expands, the most significant potential markets will probably involve emerging
technologies such as liquid fuels via pyrolysis. On the basis of current information, this market is seen
as offering good returns, with the technology being appropriate for major regional centres, thus
managing transport costs. Initial processing and oil extraction would be undertaken at nodal points,
with value added product forwarded to the major centres.
Whilst co-firing of coal fired power stations with mallee is potentially a very large market which
could nominally consume the entire projected annual harvest, the location of coal fired power stations
relative to mallee production areas means that co-firing will not be a major market for the bulk of the
projected industry, because of transport costs.
Products such as metallurgical charcoal and bio-char are potentially significant products, but of lower
value, and unlikely to drive major industry expansion unless costs of harvest and transport were
significantly reduced relative to projected levels.
The development of a long term viable project can be driven by actively targeting small but
potentially highly profitable niche markets in the short term and supporting these to further develop
the technology envisaged for a larger scale industry.
Apart from local thermal and electricity, higher value uses of mallee will require significant transport
and some storage. The leaf and twig material are of lower density and deteriorate more rapidly than
chipped wood material. They are of some potential value for oil extraction and after oil extraction this
material is of similar value to woodchip for many potential uses.
A high level of extraction of leaf material is desirable to maximise the value of woodchip for a
number of potential uses. Using current or envisaged technology, the product off the harvester would
not meet envisaged standards for many applications because of the mix of components.
A potential strategy for expanding the industry could comprise:
• Harvest the mallee trees utilising short haul transport concepts to transport the product 20-30
km from farms to nodal processing sites.
• The nodal processing sites would have the appropriate re-locatable or semi-mobile equipment
to separate leaf, twig and bark material from the chipped wood.
• The woodchip would be transported directly via rail or road to appropriate processing
facilities such as synthetic diesel production.
• Mallee oil would be extracted utilising relatively low technology steam extraction at the nodal
processing site. The extracted leaf could be sun-dried utilising low tech strategies such as
shallow bed drying. The dried leaf could then be utilised for a number of potential uses,
including baling for lower cost of transport to higher value potential uses and local use for
local thermal or electricity production.
Preliminary analysis of potential mallee products, including the feedstock component, product value
and extraction costs, suggests that fresh weight values in the order of $100/green tonne could be
achievable for large scale oil extraction combined with metallurgical charcoal and synthesised diesel.
Similarly for a limited local industry comprising oil extraction combined with local electricity and
thermal heat, fresh weight tree value could be in the order of $185/green tonne. These costs do not
include a processing profit margin.
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