FEA Timber
With an 85ha property and 250,000 m2 undercover, the $72 million FEA Bell Bay facility is one of Australia's largest and most modern sawmilling and timber processing operations.
It has potential capacity of 1,000,000 tonnes of timber a year. It is amongst the few sawmills in Australia that is capable of processing both hardwood and softwood and of these, it is the only one that is commercially processing plantation-grown hardwood.
Logs up to 6.2 metres long by 750 millimetres in diameter first enter a high-speed 150 metre per minute Nicholson A8 de-barker which is installed inline with the green mill to eliminate most double handling of logs. The full scan and set green-milling line was supplied by Optimil of Canada.
Each log is laser scanned and a computer program calculates the best way to cut the highest value from the log. The log is then rotated and angled before a chipper gives each log two flat faces. A four-band breakdown saw then cuts boards parallel to these two flat faces – these go to an edger for scanning and cutting to width while the remainder of the log is scanned and then goes to a 'cut on the curve' profiling and ripping saw. This high-tech facility optimises the number of boards which can be cut from each log, without a requirement for 'batching' logs of similar diameter.
Ultimately, the result is much higher sawn timber yields than traditional mills, with FEA aiming to achieve over 56% useable sawn timber.
The woodchips from the cutting process become woodfibre for export by SmartFibre.
The Bell Bay Sawmill also includes three high-temperature 140 cubic metre Windsor kilns which can dry softwood in less than 24 hours and a medium temperature Windsor kiln for hardwood and thinner section softwood. Heat for the kilns is supplied by the complex's own 20 megawatt steam boiler fuelled by sawdust and planer residue. This provides 70% of the mill's operating energy requirements.
The dry mill includes a Newman Whitney planer capable of processing up to 600 metres of timber a minute. Each piece of structural timber is mechanically tested by a Metriguard HCLT grading machine, assessed by a qualified grader and then assigned to a stress grade. Finished timber is automatically sorted by length and grade before being packed, wrapped and strapped for dispatch in a highly automated packaging line.
Approximately one piece per thousand is tested to destruction to ensure that the quality of structural product satisfies FEA’s quality assurance requirements.
A Leadermac moulder processes high-value moulded timber products. These are carefully hand graded and wrapped for dispatched.
The facility also has a pressure treatment plant for the production of environmentally superior preservative-treated pine products such as poles, posts and decking.
FEA Innovations
FEA Innovations is a department within FEA’s Processing division reporting to the GM Strategic Development. FEA Innovations takes a holistic approach to research and development by looking at the entire forest product supply chain; from seedling to end product and back. This way, not only will FEA have the right processing techniques in place once the trees are harvested, but we can also influence what species are grown initially to maximize returns on investment.