AUSTRALIA (From news reports) -- The new owner of Australia's last producer of newsprint says the site will need to diversify its products to remain viable.
Norwegian company Norske Skog has accepted a $27 million offer by Melbourne businessman David Marriner for the mill at Boyer, on the edge of New Norfolk in Tasmania's Derwent Valley.
The sale is expected to go through in the coming month.
The site employs 310 people, and Mr Marriner has guaranteed no job losses as part of the takeover.
It comes at a time of further decline in print media, highlighted by Australian Community Media's decision to scale back the daily publication of some of its newspapers to once-a-week editions.
The company's managing director said some of its NSW papers would make the change straight away but it would be on the road map for other papers, including Tasmania's Examiner and Advocate, in "three, five, seven years down the track".
Mr Marriner said it showed the need to diversity the products from the Boyer mill.
"When you look at a simple thing like copy paper and know that it's not now manufactured in Australia, and the sort of tonnage that's being imported into Australia, I think there are options for us to expand," he said.
"There will always be an opportunity to be creative, to get a product that, A, has made in Australia and, B, has a point of difference."
Mr Marriner also owns a concrete manufacturing plant at nearby Bridgewater, north of Hobart, which has been producing segments for the under-construction Bridgewater Bridge.
He has ambitions of producing pre-cast concrete housing for the Derwent Valley, and said the Boyer site could play a part in this by creating insulation from plantation timber.
Mill a large carbon emitter
The Boyer mill is one of Tasmania's largest carbon emitters, burning 80,000 tonnes of coal per year in its boilers.
Of Norske Skog's five mills, Boyer accounted for 67 per cent of the company's overall carbon emissions in 2022.
Its two Norwegian mills were responsible for a combined 3 per cent of the company's emissions, with the remainder from mills in France and Austria.
Norske Skog received federal funding for a feasibility study on converting the Boyer mill's boilers to electric, but was unable to reach a power purchasing agreement with Hydro Tasmania.
The mill was instead encouraged to provide its own power.
Boyer previously used coal from Tasmania's Fingal Valley, but now sources it from Newcastle in New South Wales.
Mr Marriner said changing this would be among his priorities as the new owner.
"We've already commenced exploring the options of additional power and the source of providing additional power," he said.
"We'll be very heavily trying to lobby, in the interim, to at least not be shipping coal from Newcastle, but to reinstate coal from Tasmania."
Takeover welcomed by state government, council
Tasmania's Energy Minister Nick Duigan said the government was supportive of the takeover of the Boyer mill.
The government has faced criticism from the Labor opposition over the past two years over claims that there was insufficient power available for expanding industrial users, and that Hydro had been unable to reach agreements for more access to power.
Mr Duigan said he was confident the state had enough power for the Boyer mill's purposes.
"There is certainly enough power to do what's planned at the Boyer site, I have no doubt about that," he said.
"We're certainly interested in having those conversations about how we put that site on a more sustainable footing going forward."
The Boyer mill was the first, and now last, producer of newsprint in Australia, having started in 1941.
Derwent Valley Mayor Michelle Dracoulis said she was confident Mr Marriner's ambitions would be welcomed by the workforce, and the community.
"The new owners are considering how to diversify their work within the paper product realm, and there are certainly plenty of opportunities that will see this site operating for a very long time to come in the paper based industry," she said.
