In the 1990s, the integrated industrial conglomerate, Amcor, owned the Maryvale Mill in Victoria's Latrobe Valley. We have to look back that far to understand the DNA of what has been a continuous - and some would say predictable - unwinding of resource security for one of the jewels of Australian manufacturing. At the time, Amcor also owned the hardwood plantations that were part of its feedstock for production at the mill. As part of its 1970s and ‘80s program of diversification, Amcor (at the time it was Australian Paper Mills or APM) had acquired the softwood sawmills that were part of the venerable Brown and Dureau sawmilling business. Those mills in the Latrobe Valley, adjacent to the Maryvale Mill, and another in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), supplied their residues - high quality woodchips - into the pulp and paper mill.
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