Electricians blow a fuse over safety problems at Greenbushes lithium mine expansion in WA’s South West

Electricians helping to build a third chemical-grade plant at the Greenbushes lithium mine in WA’s South West briefly downed tools last week after fearing they were at risk of electrocution. Tensions on the ground at Australia’s most profitable lithium mine are amping up following a surge of safety issues. “Electricians went to go work on a substation, it was live and they weren’t notified of it, so they packed the job up for about five or six hours and went to their cribs,” Electrical Trades Union WA state secretary Adam Woodage told The West Australian. “They basically said ‘enough is enough’, this isn’t the first serious safety breach.” Other incidents over the past year have included a ball mill — a hollow cylindrical shell filled with heavy balls to crush and grind ore — abruptly rotating without warning. Another incident last month involved a large steel beam dislodging and swinging down near a work crew on a mobile platform. “Workers have told us they don’t feel safe on site, that they’ve lost confidence in management,” Mr Woodage said. “It’s only luck that someone hasn’t been badly hurt or killed yet.” The $160 million project to assemble Greenbushes’ third chemical-grade plant will enable the massive mine to pump out more of its lithium concentrate product. Monadelphous won the gig to build the plant in September 2023 and is currently at the crunch time of construction with all work scheduled to be completed by July. Mr Woodage said the ETU wants Monadelphous to start having daily meetings with health and safety representatives and union delegates on site to get the festering safety problems addressed. “Tensions are running high on site and something needs to be done before something terrible happens,” he said. Monadelphous passed The West’s queries onto Greenbushes’ owner Talison Lithium, which is a joint venture between South Perth-based IGO, China’s Tianqi and US chemicals giant Albemarle. A Talison spokeswoman said the joint venture “is aware of the incidents referenced” to by The West. “While no personnel were harmed, these incidents should not have occurred. Immediate actions were taken, including temporarily shutting down the affected areas to mitigate risks and ensure safety,” she said. “At Talison, safety is fundamental to everything we do. Each workday for each work area begins with a pre-start meeting to review daily tasks and discuss any lessons learned from the previous day. “Internal investigations into the most recent incidents are ongoing to identify root causes, and we are implementing the recommended actions to reduce risks and prevent future incidents.” The spokeswoman also said “all reportable incidents have been communicated” to the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. A spokesman for WorkSafe, which sits within DEMIRS, said it was aware of the ball mill malfunction and steel beam incident but not the substation close call that occurred last week. The ball mill incident led to WorkSafe slapping a “prohibition notice” on the Greenbushes site, preventing any work on the ball mill “until the inspector is satisfied that the risk has been remedied”. “WorkSafe mines safety inspectors continue to conduct regular proactive and reactive inspections, taking enforcement action as needed,” the WorkSafe spokesman said. Greenbushes is the only one of nine lithium mines in Australia that can generate meaningful sums of cash at current prices. The price of the spodumene concentrate Greenbushes generates is currently around $US870 a tonne. The mine is still profitable at $US750/t, according to analysis published by Citi last year. The historic operation raked in $6.3 billion of profit for its three owners in 2023 at the height of the lithium market boom. Albemarle owns 49 per cent of Greenbushes, Tianqi 26 per cent and IGO the remaining 25 per cent. Greenbushes was originally a tin mine in the 1800s before transforming into a tantalum mine, then ultimately a lithium mine in the 1980s. The mining complex dwarfs the size of its namesake neighbouring town.