(Bloomberg) -- Quartz miner Sibelco is working to restart operations at its Spruce Pine facility in North Carolina after it was shut due to Hurricane Helene.
“The hurricane has caused widespread flooding, power outages, communication disruptions, and damage to critical infrastructure in the area,” a spokesperson from the company wrote in an email. “Many people in the area, including our employees and their families, are facing displacement and significant disruptions.”
Sibelco said operations at Spruce Pine were halted on Sept. 26 and it was working with local employees and authorities to manage the situation.
Spruce Pine, a small town an hour north of Asheville, is among the only sites in the world to contain high-purity quartz, which is key to making semiconductors, according to author Ed Conway, author of Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization. The halt in operations could affect global supply chains that depend on semiconductors to make phones, solar panels, and other technology.
Meanwhile, US company Quartz Corp. said its mine in Spruce Pine was being assessed and it was “far too early to comment on the impact to high purity quartz production.”
(Corrects company name in headline)
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