Shipping pushes ahead despite fire at Wodgina

While production at Mineral Resources’ (MinRes) Wodgina lithium mine in WA remains suspended following a processing plant fire, shipping has not been impacted.

The fire started on November 24 and was bought under control that same day.

“The fire started at approximately 5.30pm and had been brought under control by the Wodgina Emergency Response Team by 7.30pm,” a spokesman for MinRes told The Australian Financial Review. “There were no injuries and the cause of the incident remains under investigation.”

MinRes has confirmed that processing at the site remains on hold while the cause of the fire is being investigated and repair work is done on the facility it damaged.

Other parts of the mine have been able to resume production, including the mining of hard rock. MinRes said that no shipping impact is expected as a result of the fire.

MinRes delivered its first new spodumene concentrate from Wodgina back in May 2022.

Wodgina is one of the world’s largest known hard rock lithium deposits and operates under the MARBL JV – an unincorporated joint venture between MinRes (40 per cent) and Albemarle Corporation (60 per cent) – with a current processing capacity of 750,000 tonnes per annum of 6 per cent spodumene concentrate.

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