Continuous Drying Kiln Upgrade - Dardanup Mill

Continuous Drying Kiln Upgrade - Dardanup Mill is an industrial energy efficiency project located at the Wespine Industries sawmill in Dardanup West, approximately 15km southeast of the major coastal city of Bunbury in Western Australia. Registered in January 2018, the project footprint covers the Wespine sawmill site itself. The broader Ferguson Valley and Dardanup region is historically known for dairy farming, grazing, and extensive forestry operations, particularly radiata pine plantations which supply the local timber industry. The area experiences a Mediterranean climate with moderate to high winter rainfall, and the local soils range from sandy coastal plains to loams and lateritic gravels near the Darling Scarp.

The project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative, Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency) Methodology 2015. Projects under this methodology reduce greenhouse gas emissions by modifying, removing, or replacing existing energy-consuming equipment to achieve higher fuel or electricity efficiency. In this specific project, Wespine upgraded its continuous drying kilns (which are used to dry sawn timber) to reduce the amount of process heat and fuel required per unit of timber production.

Wespine Industries is one of Western Australia's major timber producers, with its Dardanup mill capable of processing up to 475,000 cubic metres of log intake annually. Notably, this energy efficiency project successfully secured a carbon abatement contract (CAC456592) with the Australian Government via the Clean Energy Regulator during the March 2020 auction. This contract, which involved the optional delivery of 86,100 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), was officially completed on March 16, 2026.