Australian bioenergy company Delorean Corporation and paper and packaging group Opal have completed the concept stage for a proposed anaerobic digestion facility at Opal's Maryvale Mill in Victoria, advancing the project into its development phase.
The Opal-funded concept study identified potential for a large-scale facility capable of converting organic residues—and potentially paper manufacturing by-products—into renewable biogas.
If developed, the biogas would replace natural gas currently used to fuel the mill's rotary lime kiln, a high-temperature industrial process central to papermaking operations.
Lime kilns represent a significant thermal energy demand within pulp and paper manufacturing, typically operating continuously at high temperatures to recalcify lime used in the chemical pulping process.
Displacing natural gas in this application with biogas offers a direct decarbonisation pathway for an energy-intensive industrial process that is otherwise difficult to electrify.
The concept phase encompassed facility design work, desktop environmental and planning assessments, feedstock availability discussions, and commercial feasibility analysis specific to Opal's Maryvale site.
With that groundwork complete, Delorean will now conduct further assessment of the project's feasibility and the conditions required to reach a final investment decision (FID), at which point commercial terms between the two parties would be finalised.
The project's construction and design investment is currently estimated at approximately AUD 35 million (USD 21.7 million/EUR 24.8 million), a figure subject to revision as engineering and development work progresses.
Under the existing memorandum of understanding between the companies, Delorean and Opal may establish an equally owned joint venture should the project proceed to construction, with Delorean holding a right of first refusal over 50 per cent of the project equity.
