PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Battery minerals producer IGO has suspended operations at its Nova nickel project, in Western Australia, following a fire at the Zenith Energy-operated power station over the weekend.

The ASX-listed company told shareholders on Monday that a fire damaged the 10 MW power station in the early hours of Saturday, and while the emergency response team was able to isolate and extinguish the fire, the diesel engine room was extensively damaged.

There was no damage to other infrastructure, including the control room, switch room, solar photovoltaic, battery energy storage and power distribution network, and no injuries were reported.

IGO is now working with Zenith to re-establish power supply to Nova, and this is expected to be staged with the mobilisation of power generators to site. Subject to permitting and approval, the mining operations are expected to restart in two weeks, while the restoration of the full power supply to operate the processing facility is expected to take  four weeks.

“While this incident will result in the Nova operation being offline for several weeks, we are thankful that all of our people are safe and unharmed. I am also grateful to our emergency response team for their quick and professional response and for restricting the fire to the engine room. We have activated our contingency plans and are working closely with Zenith to re-establish operations at Nova as quickly and safely as possible,” said IGO acting CEO Matt Dusci.

Meanwhile, IGO on Monday also reported the start of commercial production from Train 1 of the Kwinana lithium hydroxide refinery, effective from the end of November.

The lithium hydroxide refinery is a joint venture between IGO and its partner Tianqi Lithium Corporation, dubbed Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia. Train 1 of the Kwinana refinery has a 24 000 t/y production capacity, and construction of Train 2, which would add a further 24 000 t/y in capacity, is slated for commissioning in 2024.

IGO told shareholders that product qualifications and certification with potential offtake customers are ongoing while Train 1 continues to ramp up production over the course of 2023.