All personnel at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Century zinc operation in Queensland are safe and accounted for following a regional bushfire.
Sibanye said the operations team that helped manage the bushfire at Century and its neighbouring areas were able to protect the primary infrastructure at Century operation. Such infrastructure included the processing plant, hydro mine, airport, underground slurry pipeline and accommodation camp.
However, the company said there has been extensive loss of surface piping infrastructure, including the feed and water lines that connected the hydro mine to the processing plant and other key service lines.
Sibanye-Stillwater has placed orders for replacement piping but said that due to the amount of replacement piping required, the Century operations will remain suspended until November 16 2024.
“This incident once more highlights the threat posed by climate change, leading to significant harm from extreme weather-related events worldwide,” Sibanye-Stillwater chief executive officer Neal Froneman said.
“This affirms our purpose of ‘safeguarding global sustainability through our metals’ and the critical importance of resource stewardship and optimising scarce resources, including through reprocessing of legacy tailings facilities as is done by the Century operations.”
The bushfire is expected to reduce Century’s zinc production by approximately 9680 tonnes for the December 2024 quarter.
The regional bushfire at Century follows the operation being impacted by severe weather in the March 2024 quarter. The flooding resulted in Sibanye-Stillwater delivering 42,000 tonnes of zinc for the six months ending June 2024, a result less than originally forecast.
Sibanye-Stillwater obtained the Century operations when it acquired New Century Resources in May 2023.