PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Olympic Dam uranium/copper mine, in South Australia, has suffered another power failure, costing the mine more than four hours of production.
Mining major BHP Billiton told Mining Weekly Online on Thursday that the overnight power outage had resulted from an inter-connector failure and a lag of generation in South Australia.
“Olympic Dam’s latest outage shows Australia’s investability and jobs are placed in peril by the failure of policy to both reduce emissions and secure affordable, dispatchable and uninterrupted power,” CEO Andrew Mackenzie said in a statement.
“The challenge to reduce emissions and grow the economy cannot fall to renewables alone.
“This is a wakeup call ahead of the Council of Australian Governments meeting and power supply and security must be top of the agenda and urgently addressed.”
BHP lost some three weeks worth of production at the Olympic Dam mine following a state-wide power outage in late September. As a result, the mine’s original 200 000 t guidance for the 2017 financial year is currently under review.