Farm Forestry New ZealandTechno-economic analysis of veneers & posts from specialty wood species (durable eucalypts)
By Peter Hall and Rosie Sargent, August 2021.
Download SWP-T126 (pdf)
Executive summary
This report was commissioned by the Specialty Wood Products Research Partnership and is aimed at assessing the potential for making durable eucalypt posts and veneers from a durable eucalypt crop, E. globoidea, using 3 regime options (15, 20 and 25-year rotations).
Making veneers and posts from a crop of durable eucalypt logs appears to be technically and financially viable at a scale suitable for the demand for naturally durable posts. There are potential markets for both durable posts and high stiffness veneers in the Nelson- Marlborough region.
The market for untreated durable eucalypt posts for organic primary production operations such as vineyards and fruit growing are up to 17,000 m3 per annum.
Eucalypt veneers could be used to make either a 100% eucalypt LVL or be added to radiata pine LVL to increase the stiffness (GPa rating) and therefore increase the value of the product.
Getting eucalyptus veneer prices was difficult as none are produced in New Zealand at commercial scale, they were estimated to be available from overseas markets at between $440 and $570 per m3.
The larger processing plants have higher ROCEs’ with the plants that would run on crops from longer rotations having ROCEs’ of over 20% and, depending on the veneer prices, potentially over 30%. The returns are highly sensitive to the veneer prices.
Overall, the data suggests that the 20-year regime would give better results than the 15-year regime and similar results to the 25-year regime with the benefit of the material being available slightly sooner. The longer rotations (20 to 25 years) gave better yields of veneers. The area of forest required to service the plant making the posts and veneers was estimated at being between 1,500 and 2,000 hectares, depending on the regime used.
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