More KI jobs lost as biocoke project up in smoke

By DANIEL CLARKE

30/07/26

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Three full-time jobs have been lost and a projected 50 more will never be realised as the company planning to utilise felled plantation timber for biocoke production could not raise the funds to make the project viable.

 

In another blow to Kangaroo Island’s workforce, Wundowie Carbon revealed to the Island Independent yesterday that despite considerable private investment, it could not secure the funding required “to get the Kangaroo Island project over the line”.

 

The sprawling shed to house the commercial-scale biocoke processing built on Macgill farm near Parndana was the first stage of a $60 million project that the company said would ultimately save about 1.1 million tonnes of coal from being dug up to power the world’s industries.

 

At its peak, the project was expected to ship 50,000 tonnes of biocoke a year around the world, utilising millions of tonnes of blue gum timber that currently lies wasting across vast areas of western Kangaroo Island. 

 

Kiland, the owner of more than 18,000 hectares of forestry land, has begun burning felled blue gum and pine trees across a variety of its holdings. It was hoped all of the timber lying in piles on the vast Macgill farm would be utilised in the biocoke production process but that plan now appears in ashes.  

 

The total number of forestry-related jobs lost since April now stands at 58. Kiland shed 55 staff in two rounds of lay-offs in April and July. The company is still yet to confirm the exact number in the second lay-off or why those job losses were required. However, the Island Independent understands the figure was 21, following the 34 announced on April 28. 

 

Wundowie Carbon Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Haydn Smith said that the biocoke company’s shareholders had invested heavily over a number of years and “did everything they could to give the project every chance of succeeding”.

 

“We know this will be disappointing news for many people on Kangaroo Island who have supported our vision of building a new local industry based on renewable manufacturing,” Mr Smith said. 

 

“While there has been strong interest from potential customers and our biocoke has proven it can do the job, we simply haven't been able to secure the investment needed to get the Kangaroo Island project over the line.

 

“We also sought support from both State and Federal governments, but unfortunately the funding needed to move into construction wasn't available.

 

“With our shareholders no longer able to continue funding the project, we've made the difficult decision to wind it down. Sadly, that means the loss of three full-time jobs on Kangaroo Island.

 

“This isn't the outcome anyone wanted. We genuinely believed this project could help lay the foundations for a new industry supplying the renewable carbon needed to produce greener metals in Australia and around the world. We're deeply grateful to the local community, our employees and everyone who backed that vision.”

 

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019/20 burned over 210,000 hectares of land that impacted about 95 per cent of Kiland’s blue gum and pine forest plantations. The company since embarked on a large scale felling process that it said would revert the land back to agricultural use. 

 

Late last year Wundowie Carbon acquired Re-Vi Group Limited – the original builders of a smaller scale uncommissioned biochar facility - and had shifted the project’s focus from biochar and carbon credits to processing the timber into biocoke for the green metals industry to produce what is known as green steel. 

 

In the interview in May, Smith said that absent Wundowie’s intervention “all of this timber is going to be burnt in the paddock. Every single tonne. None of us want to see this resource go to waste”.

 

That now appears the reality as residents living in the west of the island prepare themselves for long-term burning operations that are likely to last years.