Continuous Drying Kiln Upgrade - Dardanup Mill

Continuous Drying Kiln Upgrade - Dardanup Mill is an Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency project located at the Wespine sawmill in Dardanup, approximately 15km southeast of the major regional city of Bunbury in Western Australia. It was registered in January 2018 and is confined to the industrial footprint of the mill, covering an unknown specific land area as it relies on a facility-based engineering upgrade rather than a land sector methodology.

Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency projects reduce greenhouse gas emissions by lowering the amount of energy or fuel consumed by industrial processes. Standard requirements for this methodology involve the proponent modifying, removing, or replacing existing energy-consuming equipment. In this instance, the project activities are focused on process heat, specifically upgrading the continuous drying kiln used to cure commercial plantation timber to operate far more efficiently.

The Dardanup area is part of Western Australia's South West region, which is heavily utilised for dairy farming, cattle grazing, and extensive commercial forestry (both native and plantation). The region features a Mediterranean climate characterised by high winter rainfall. Topographically, it sits on the boundary of the Swan Coastal Plain and the Darling Scarp, where soils transition from coastal sands to rich sandy loams and lateritic (ironstone) gravels, providing ideal growing conditions for the softwood pine trees processed at the mill.

Wespine Industries operates the Dardanup site with a strict zero-waste approach; timber that reaches maturity is processed with all offcuts used for garden sleepers or woodchips, and sawdust sent to a nearby particleboard facility. The kiln upgrade project aligns heavily with these continuous sustainability improvements. Additionally, this carbon project was backed by an optional delivery carbon abatement contract (CAC456592) established in April 2020 for 86,100 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which reached its completion in March 2026.