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Review of WA Forest Products Commission carbon sequestration project

Review of WA Forest Products Commission carbon sequestration project

Specifications

  • Client: Macquarie Bank
  • Scope:

    Due diligence review of proposed carbon forest sequestration project including:

    • assessment of proposed sites for forest plantation suitability
    • assessment of the managing organisation's operational capacity to undertake the project
    • assessment of the managing organisation's research and development capacity
    • the suitability of land evaluation and selection criteria
    • appropriateness of the silvicultural regime with respect to species, region and site
    • reasonableness of the projected biomass and carbon yields
    • relevant risks, especially for biomass and carbon yield

    (Under sub-contract to MBAC Consulting Group)

  • Challenge:

    The client required confidence that their proposed investment in oil mallee and tree plantations for carbon abatement would deliver the forecaste levels of carbon sequestration. Independent data for both biomass partitioning plus tree and mallee growth rates were very limited.

  • Solution:

    Verterra undertook evaluation of yield projections: to (a) compare agreement between multiple approaches to yield estimation; and (b) provide upper and lower bounds of confidence in yeild potential. In the absence of detailed and expensive assessment, this provided a distribution of likely yeild range with a high level of confidence that allowed Maquarie to take a risk-based approach to likely carbon yield.

  • Benefit to Client:

    The project provided the client with the necessary technical, commercial and management due diligence to support its investment decision in forest planation carbon sequestration.

  • Market Sector: Finance and Investment
  • Capabilities:
    • Carbon bio-sequestration
    • Greenhouse Gases
    • Project commercial services
  • Location: Western Australia
  • Year: 2008