A regional bushfire has impacted Sibanye-Stillwater’s Century operation in Queensland, and operations are expected to remain suspended until 16 November 2024.
The company said that the safety and well-being of its employees and contractors is its foremost priority, and all personnel are safe and accounted for.
Sibanye-Stillwater’s operational teams have helped manage the bushfire at the Century operation and the neighbouring areas.
While the operations team has been able to protect the primary infrastructure at the Century operation (processing plant, hydro mine, airport, underground slurry pipeline and camp), there has been extensive loss of surface piping infrastructure, including the feed and water lines that connect the hydro mine to the processing plant and other key service lines.
Suppliers have been contacted, and orders for replacement piping have been placed. Due to the amount of piping required and the continued closure, the company anticipates production of zinc metal for Q4 2024 to be approximately 9,680 payable tonnes less than forecast because of the suspended operations.
Sibanye-Stillwater CEO, Neal Froneman, said, “This incident once more highlights the threat posed by climate change, leading to significant harm from extreme weather-related events worldwide.
“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.
“This setback is unfortunate considering the Century operation had recovered well after heavy rains affected Q1 2024.”
