It’s official. Australia’s first methanol-to-jet fuel facility will be built in South Australia after the Peter Malinauskas-led government provided support for an $800 million sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plant.
Speaking about the deal today, David Stribley, HAMR Energy’s co-founder, said the decision to set up camp in South Australia builds on its existing investments in Victoria: “The state’s world-class infrastructure, commitment to clean energy, and proximity to sustainable feedstock sources make it an excellent location to accelerate decarbonisation in aviation.”
Wood Central understands that wood residues from the Green Triangle will serve as feedstock for the massive plant, which will use Honeywell’s world-leading methanol-to-jet technology to produce more than 300,000 tonnes of low-carbon methanol, made from a mix of plantation residues and hydrogen, to provide up to 140 million litres of SAF every year. And according to Stribley, that’s enough to fully offset more than 4.5 million economy-class passenger trips between Adelaide and Melbourne over a 12-month period.
The science underpinning the value chain is advanced.
Already, researchers from the Australian Forest and Wood Innovations (AFWI) Fibre to Fuels project are working alongside 16 partners to test whether residues from the Green Triangle, home to the country’s most productive forest plantations, as well as forests in Tasmania and Western Australia, can be turned into low-carbon liquid fuels at a commercial scale. Led by Professor Mark Brown, Director of the AFWI Centre for Sustainable Futures located at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Professor Brown revealed to this masthead that the feed inputs will be provided to fuel the enormous facility.
“Forestry residues are a high-quality resource that can become a valuable domestic feedstock for renewable fuel production,” Professor Brown said today. “Fibre to Fuels exemplifies the type of commercially-minded innovation that can move Australia to the forefront of low-carbon manufacturing, delivering regional benefits, building sovereign capability, and contributing to the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors.”
Already, HAMR Energy has signed supply agreements with local plantation estates like OneFortyOne, which has been a vocal champion of the project since signing a memorandum of understanding last year. Meanwhile, in January, OneFortyOne Director of Corporate Strategy Nick Chan described the Green Triangle’s scale, year-round operations, and established logistics as key advantages for supplying feedstock for low-carbon fuels, calling the HAMR partnership “a defining moment for plantation forestry in Australia.”
The announcement, made just 18 days out from the March 21 election, is being framed by the state government as a win for jobs and investment, with Premier Malinauskas, a long-standing supporter of the state’s forest value chain, the runaway favourite to secure a second term. Speaking about the commitment, Joe Szakacs, the state’s Minister for Trade, said the investment didn’t happen by accident.“It follows persistent work and considered planning,” Szakacs said. “Our Government warmly welcomes HAMR Energy’s backing of South Australia.”
The $10 million Series A round brought Qantas, Airbus and thyssenkrupp Uhde onto the register — as Wood Central reported last month — locking in aviation and industrial partners who are betting on the methanol-to-jet pathway to decarbonise sectors where electrification isn’t an option.
Combined with HAMR Energy’s Portland Renewable Fuels facility in Victoria, which will produce the renewable methanol, the South Australian plant gives the company two large-scale projects running off feedstock. The Portland project, backed by the Albanese government’s $1.1 billion Cleaner Fuels Program, was first flagged by Wood Central in mid-2023, when then-Victorian Minister for Energy Lily D’Ambrosio spoke about the benefits of sustainable fuels manufacturing at the Port of Portland.
Aerospace giants are tapping into forest fibre to decarbonise
The Fibre to Fuels project has assembled a coalition of more than a dozen forestry, industry and research partners — from Sustainable Timber Tasmania, PF Olsen and Timberlands Pacific through to CSIRO, the University of South Australia, the University of the Sunshine Coast and thyssenkrupp Uhde, who, alongside Wespine, OneFortyOne, South West Fibre, HVP, GTFP, SFM and Hydrowood, are assessing the composition of different residues, trialling collection and transport logistics, and mapping carbon emissions.
Dr Joseph Lawrence, executive director of the $200 million AFWI research institute, said forestry has a rare window to show what sustainable plantation management can deliver value far beyond sawlogs: “I think the story goes through biodiversity, environmental protections… and the jobs it can create.”
“If you’re producing a biofuel from forest fibre or waste, you can align that directly with the aviation industry — companies like Boeing — as well as the chemical sector. It’s about bringing all of these players together.”
For growers and processors across the Green Triangle, it is another revenue stream from wood that has historically gone nowhere. Now with two HAMR Energy projects in the pipeline and a research program spanning more than a dozen partners, the value chain that starts with forest residues and ends with jet fuel on the tarmac is no longer just a pitch deck.
- For more on the push to convert Green Triangle forest waste into sustainable aviation fuel, click here for Wood Central’s coverage of Qantas Backs Plan to Turn Green Triangle Forest Waste into Jet Fuel.
