PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Iron-ore miner Mount Gibson Iron has temporarily suspended mining in the main pit of its Koolan Island operation, in Western Australia,.
The ASX-listed miner said the suspension of mining was taken as a precautionary measure to allow the company to monitor and repair an area of instability in the upper part of the southern pit wall.
Personnel working in the main pit have been redeployed to other scheduled mining activities, and operations outside the main pit were continuing as normal, with production in the Acacia East pit being accelerated, Mount Gibson said.
The company was anticipating that it would take some four weeks to complete remedial work to repair a slump, which was detected over the weekend, and to restart production in the main pit.
Some four iron-ore shipments from Koolan Island would be delayed in the December quarter, but the miner has maintained its full-year sales guidance of between 6.6-million and 7-million tonnes.