Oji Fibre Solutions has purchased an office/warehouse from Frasers Property at Yatala Central

ONE of Australasia’s leading pulp, paper and cardboard packaging manufacturers has expanded its operations into Queensland with the purchase of a soon-to-be-completed facility at Yatala.

QUALITY DESIGN: An artist's impression of Oji Fibre Solutions' 24,126sq m facility in Frasers Property Australia’s Yatala Central.

ONE of Australasia’s leading pulp, paper and cardboard packaging manufacturers has expanded its operations into Queensland with the purchase of a soon-to-be-completed facility at Yatala.

Oji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS) will move into the two-level state-of-the-art 24,126sq m warehouse, plant and office building at Frasers Property Australia’s Yatala Central in September.

Frasers general manager of new business Troy Whalan said Yatala Central continued to attract major manufacturing and logistics companies.

“OjiFS will join Beaulieu Australia, O-I Glass, CUB and Caterpillar in the Yatala enterprise area,” he said.

“In the past few months, over 80 per cent of inquiries to move into the estate have come from local and international manufacturing companies.”

Colliers International struck the deal for the sale of the building at Lot 21, 146 Pearson Rd.

Late last year Queensland Premier Palaszczuk announced that OjiFs would be establishing a manufacturing facility at Yatala with a total expenditure of $72 million.

However, according to industry sources the company will pay between $1200/sq m and $1300/sq m, or about $30 million, for the building while the rest of the spend will be taken up setting up the plant and other costs.

The company’s majority shareholder is Japan-based Oji Holdings, one of the largest companies in the global forest, paper and packaging sector.

OjiFS general manager in Australia, Nick Molloy said the new facility will expand the company’s packaging business.

“The market has encouraged us to expand our manufacturing footprint and we look forward to offering customers more choice,” he said.

The Yatala Central plant will produce a range of paper-based products for the horticulture, dairy, meat, beverage, seafood, reseller and industrial sectors in New Zealand and Australia, based principally on cardboard made from sustainable wood fibre grown in New Zealand.

Frasers Property has developed more than 17ha in Yatala Central and has recently completed part of the civil construction on the remaining 22ha which will be released to the market mid 2017.