Seems to my thinking the land in both locations has been acquired adjacent to the Rail Network.  Both on BG and one on SG.  Rail is the obvious delivery mechanism but If Portland is not available then how will the product be shipped?

Based on what happens elsewhere, export ethanol will be transported in bulk like most other petroleum products and will need to be exported via a port equipped to load bulk petroleum products.

If this is the case then I am not sure there is a port in Victoria which has this capability?

Coode Island is the Port of Melbourne's bulk liquids terminal, but all the literature I can find shows that it only imports bulk liquids so it may not be able to export ethanol without modifications. It doesn't have a rail link either but if there was a need I'm sure a discharge siding and a short pipeline could be built for the ethanol traffic.

Based on what happens elsewhere, export ethanol will be transported in bulk like most other petroleum products and will need to be exported via a port equipped to load bulk petroleum products.

If this is the case then I am not sure there is a port in Victoria which has this capability?

It seems the Port of Geelong has that capability

http://www.regionalchannels.vic.gov.au/index.php/geelong-port/geelong-details
See the last full paragraph on the page which at time of writing said:
"The port handles a wide variety of cargoes including bulk liquid (crude oil, petroleum, and chemicals)"

Hmmmm, just some random ravings, you have been warned...................

Let's say the plant uses 10,000 tons of grain a week (thats 500,000 tons a year) and the process is 60% effective so 1 tonne of grain produces 600Kg of Ethanol. Thats somewhat under 800 litres per tonne of grain and thats 800 x 10,000 tons, ie 8 million litres of Ethanol per week, say 100 80,000 litre tank cars. Thats WAY beyond road transport.

Overseas experience shows this will surely push up the price of grain, so farmers are likely to be happy.

woodford

Thanks Woodford.
Informative as always.

Many thanks, its just a rough guess based on the fact they appear to be using old style process's to produce the fuel, the idea was to give everyone some kind of view of the scale of the operation. The more recent techniques, developed in the past few years claim a yield of 95% fuel from plant material with the tanks at room temperature, so the yield may be higher for lower overall energy input

woodford

I doubt this will get up.

All the land around this area is zoned either "Farming Zone" or "Low Density Residential Zone". I would say the company proposing this will have somewhat of a fight on their hands as the land will have to be re-zoned to at least "Industrial 2 Zone" for a "plant" to be built on any of that land.

I cannot find any reference to the project at all online. It's not even in any of the local council's minutes.

Would love to know your source @bevans

Sorry, you are wrong, for a number of years now Golden Plains have been working with the Gheringhap resident ( I am one) to rezone this area to industrial.
Try this link,

http://dongmungreentec.com.au/?page_id=1117

They have already bought the land.

Regards GoG.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the project. After working locally in both agriculture and manufacturing anything like this is great for the Greater Geelong region.

I am only going by what I could find on the Victorian Land Channel website with regards to the zoning and know some residents who live near by that had no idea that this is even planned.

Based on what happens elsewhere, export ethanol will be transported in bulk like most other petroleum products and will need to be exported via a port equipped to load bulk petroleum products.

If this is the case then I am not sure there is a port in Victoria which has this capability?

It seems the Port of Geelong has that capability

http://www.regionalchannels.vic.gov.au/index.php/geelong-port/geelong-details
See the last full paragraph on the page which at time of writing said:
"The port handles a wide variety of cargoes including bulk liquid (crude oil, petroleum, and chemicals)"

If Dongmun are talking those sort of quantities and they are looking at the amount of investment in infrastructure to we might see an extension on the DG Corio Independent Goods line on the up to the refinery here in Geelong.

To give some feel to the size of an Ethanol plant on page one Woodfrod posted a starting point figure of 10,000 tons per week of grain would produce approximately 8,000,000 litres per week of ethanol.
That is around 1,150,000 litres per day or at a sg of 0.8 is 914 tonnes per day.
Mentioned on another post were the capacity of 25,000l containers that would equate to 46 per day.
The problem with all chemical plants is providing storage between shipments so at 1,000 tons/day would require capacity of 30,000 tons on site if shipments were once per month.
Geelong port can handle liquid imports and exports however I suspect the Viva Refinery would be the only place with wharf facilities to load and discharge liquids.
To lay a pipe line from Geringhap to Corio is feasible but to which wharf would be interesting as a loading gantry would be required and would Viva lease theirs?
All doable but a leap for Geelong Ports as they have been talking for years of boosting the port and remember they wanted standard gauge connection?
They got it, for what, nothing has happened.
I hope this all comes to fruition as rail and ports have not been supported by Governments of late.

10,000 tonnes of grain per week required at Gheringhap but maybe also at Denni?

I think that would come close to 4 full 40 wagon grain trains per week into the plant at Gheringhap and probably the same in Denni?

A pipeline to corio would be an expensive proposition compared to tank wagons and an unloading facility which would be far cheaper to build.

What might happen is the product could be railed to other states ?

10,000 tonnes of grain per week required at Gheringhap but maybe also at Denni?

I think that would come close to 4 full 40 wagon grain trains per week into the plant at Gheringhap and probably the same in Denni?

A pipeline to corio would be an expensive proposition compared to tank wagons and an unloading facility which would be far cheaper to build.

What might happen is the product could be railed to other states ?

Into Gheringhap, yes, but not Deni as it is a grain growing region so it can come in direct from there (by ol' farmer Joe's truck) rather than being 'imported'.

Into Gheringhap, yes, but not Deni as it is a grain growing region so it can come in direct from their (by ol' farmer Joe's truck).

Are you of the opinion the product will be railed out of Deniliquin?

Into Gheringhap, yes, but not Deni as it is a grain growing region so it can come in direct from there (by ol' farmer Joe's truck) rather than being 'imported'.

Are you of the opinion the product will be railed out of Deniliquin?

I've read the relevant parts of the EIS so I know it should be: they estimate 12 wagons/day inbound and 10 wagons/day outbound (based on 330 days/year – what a “wagon” means is not described though).

I've read the relevant parts of the EIS so I know it should be: they estimate 12 wagons/day inbound and 10 wagons/day outbound (based on 330 days/year – what a “wagon” means is not described though).

12 wagons per day of what?  Grain?

EIS for Deni plant is here:
https://majorprojects.affinitylive.com/public/8baf24643cf2fc9a6345436af9d681b1/EIS%20Main%20Volume%20Part%201.pdf

On page 153:
The proposal is to transport 70 percent of the raw materials and output products from the ethanol production using the rail network. The current assumption is that the raw materials and products would be trucked to/from the Rice Grower’s siding approximately 3 km to the north east. In the longer term, the plan is to provide a rail siding on the western boundary of the site which connects to the Moama Deniliquin Railway line immediately to the east of the site subject to further approval.

It is estimated that the average number of train wagons required per day (based on 330 days per year) would be around 12 wagons per day inbound and 10 wagons per day outbound from Deniliquin. QUBE Logistics, the sole operator of the rail line into Deniliquin has been consulted and confirmed that there is available capacity on this line for all the proposal’s rail freight needs. Details around the specific requirements for transporting the ethanol product would be defined at the next stage of Project development.

Waiting for someone on here to state those volumes are not enough for rail. Those volumes are 20% of the current volumes which could be using rail between Millicent and Portland.

The rail siding required could be funded by the councils and the vic government as this would be cheaper than the road damage.

All very good news for Deniliquin in jobs and qube also. Are grain trains running on the Deniliquin line at all ?

Does the EIS cover Gheringhap ?

Waiting for someone on here to state those volumes are not enough for rail. Those volumes are 20% of the current volumes which could be using rail between Millicent and Portland.

The rail siding required could be funded by the councils and the vic government as this would be cheaper than the road damage.

All very good news for Deniliquin in jobs and qube also. Are grain trains running on the Deniliquin line at all ?

Does the EIS cover Gheringhap ?

Yes, quite a few PN grain trains on the Deni line at present. One or two per week and probably even more in the near future.

I might to do some digging around to find any Gheringhap EIS....  Vic Govt seems much more secretive.

There is also the option for grain trains onto the western branch of that line as the local government who I have spoken to have been quite frustrated at not being able to get trains on the old branch for 500,000 tonnes of grain per annum so of which could be sent to the ethanol plant perhaps?

There is also the option for grain trains onto the western branch of that line as the local government who I have spoken to have been quite frustrated at not being able to get trains on the old branch for 500,000 tonnes of grain per annum so of which could be sent to the ethanol plant perhaps?

If we're talking about the Moulamein line, trains would either need to go all the way to Echuca to do a loco round-around or a push-pull consist.  Otherwise a triangle or loop at Barnes would be needed.  I think it's been over 10 years since anything ran along that line, so lots of work required to bring it up to speed I would imagine.

There is also the option for grain trains onto the western branch of that line as the local government who I have spoken to have been quite frustrated at not being able to get trains on the old branch for 500,000 tonnes of grain per annum so of which could be sent to the ethanol plant perhaps?

If we're talking about the Moulamein line, trains would either need to go all the way to Echuca to do a loco round-around or a push-pull consist.  Otherwise a triangle or loop at Barnes would be needed.  I think it's been over 10 years since anything ran along that line, so lots of work required to bring it up to speed I would imagine.

There is also the fact that the line is in NSW. Is the Vic government going to stump up the $$$ to re-instate a line in NSW to achieve less wear and tear on NSW roads?

Yes there would be some benefit to Vic in terms of port charges but they may be getting them anyway. Some small income from access charges, that's about it. More $$$ in NSW farmers pockets means more tax $$$ for NSW not Victoria.

I think like with the Deniliquin and Toolamba line unless the operator pays all or part of the cost Victorian budget funds would be better off spent elsewhere

BG

The Victorian Government should be there to facilitate business and if that is using rail because it is cheaper then that is what they should be doing regardless of if the plant is in NSW or Vic etc. Trucks would be crossing from NSW to Vic to access the grain and the ports etc so road damage is really a national problem.

Most of Australia's fuel is already imported in bulk tankers and offloaded at places like Coode island, Geelong and a lot used to come in via Western Port Bay (Hastings I think). In the time it takes them to build 2 plants it would easily have time for to establish any required port facilities on an existing dock (or a former petroleum one).

Both facilities are near existing Victorian railways which suggests the use of containers or tankers.  It will depend on the sort of ship they are using but if the ship is a bulk tanker expect storage tanks and tank cars.  After all the VR used to tow petrol in tank cars by steam locos to various sidings in Melbourne and regional towns for distribution by road so it can be done. After all ethanol is just a fuel and the railways have carried plenty of that here and worldwide)

It would be likely to be a dedicated service to whichever port they choose (such as the Deni rice train is to Melbourne) to fit with modern rail operations.  The biggest threat to the service would be NIMBY's near the port or railway line worried about the dangers after watching one of those hyped up, over dramatised, reality shows.

This project will provide much needed jobs for Geelong and also in southern NSW.

The Victorian Government should be there to facilitate business and if that is using rail because it is cheaper then that is what they should be doing regardless of if the plant is in NSW or Vic etc. Trucks would be crossing from NSW to Vic to access the grain and the ports etc so road damage is really a national problem.

If it is being carried by Road to Deni, Mildura, Echuca etc then railed from there then the vast majority of the wear and tear would be in NSW. I doubt much wheat if any would be trucked all the way from Moulemein to Portland / Geelong / Melbourne ports.

BG

There are no functioning wheat silos in Echuca (they are there but haven't been used in the 7 years we have had property up here) but there was a train sent to Wakool about 2 or 3 summers ago to clean out the silos there.

When I was working for the rail track weedspraying mob we still needed to weedspray to Moulamein as the track was still 'in service' but there were no scheduled trains.  The work was done with road-rail vehicle travelling along the line supported by road vehicles to do the extra 'vision' clearances at road crossings.

Wakool is a major grain receival site in southern NSW.

Woodford noted that Portland used to have bulk fuel delivered, which is correct. It was offloaded at the Lee breakwater pier, which is now used for the passenger ships and the occasional cargo vessel waiting to dock at the main facilities.

If ethanol was exported from Portland today, it would be in containerised tanks.

Rick