The reopening of Tasmania’s Beaconsfield mine has been hit by another delay after a break-in left the site with damaged infrastructure and no power.
The site of arguably the most well-known mine disaster in Australia, the Beaconsfield mine collapsed in 2006, trapping workers Todd Russell and Brant Webb and taking the life of Larry Knight.
Russell and Webb were rescued two weeks after the collapse, and the mine was shuttered six years later.
In 2020, NQ Minerals acquired Beaconsfield and announced plans to re-open the mine following a successful pre-feasibility study.
But the road to re-opening the site has not been a smooth one, with the latest break-in just one out of a series.
“We’ve had so many break-ins over a few years now,” Beaconsfield Gold spokesman Roger Jackson told the ABC.
“They’ve gradually got worse and worse. This last event we’re really just devastated by it, given its magnitude.”
The break-in over the weekend was an attempt to steal copper wiring, according to Tasmania police.
“The offenders have wrapped a chain around the mass of copper cables close to where they attach to the transformer and tried to rip them free using the front-end loader,” Inspector Dean McMahon from Tasmania Police said.
“This caused the transformer to buckle and damage part of the overhead cabling structure.”
Damaging the transformer has meant the site has lost power, costing the re-opening efforts time and money.
However, Jackson remains confident that the project will still go ahead.
“It’s just a matter of time and money — money that could have been spent doing other things that would have been more productive,” he said.
“It’s not the end of the project but it certainly is a real stumbling block.”