ESSENTIAL NODE IN GLOBAL SEMICONDUCTOR SUPPLY CHAIN HIT BY HURRICANE HELENE — COMPANY SAYS IT HAS “TEMPORARILY HALTED OPERATIONS” AFTER VIDEO REVEALS ENTRANCE TO MINE HAS FLOODED

Based on Hunterbrook Media’s alerting, Hunterbrook Capital is extfinished Ferroglobe Plc (NASDAQ: $GSM) and Nordic Mining ASA (Oslo: $NOM) at the time of uncoveration. Positions may alter at any time. See filled disclostateives below.

“The up-to-date economy rests on a individual road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina,” wrote Ethan Mollick, a professor of regulatement at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and costraightforwardor of its Generative AI Labs, on March 9, 2024. 

At the finish of this inconspicuous road sit two mines that create the immense beginantity of high-purity quartz (HPQ) that is indispensable to the global semicarry outor industry. 

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the horrific injure to the community eunites to have extfinished to the roads and freight rail line joining the mining operations to the outside world — according to images assessed and geodiscoverd by Hunterbrook Media.

One video posted to TikTok euniteed to show the enthrall to one of the set ups of the mine — owned by SCR Sibelco NV (BSE: BE0944264663) — underwater, with a text overlay praying for the community.

In the video, a truck eunites to be subunited.

In the Appalachian Mountains, the facilities in Spruce Pine provide between an assessd 70% and 90% of the mined and processed HPQ employd in the electronics industry.

Although it is one of Earth’s most frequent minerals, quartz in its uncontaminatedst establish — such as the white quartz in North Carolina — is much unfrequentr. And uncontaminated quartz is a critical component for the production of the silicon wafers essential for everyleang from your phone and computer to huge language models and solar panels.

If the operations of the two beginant quartz miners in the region — Sibelco and The Quartz Corp. — are disturbed, experts have shelp, the consequences could be catastrophic. 

“If you flew over the two mines in Spruce Pine with a crop duster loaded with a very particular powder, you could finish the world’s production of semicarry outors and solar panels wilean six months,” shelp an industry expert in the acclaimed book Material World by economist Ed Conway. 

Conway claims this is becaemploy, “no high-purity quartz nastys no Czochralski crucibles, which nastys no monocrysloftyine silicon wafers, which nastys, well, the finish of computer chip manufacture as we understand it.” 

A Hunterbrook alerter in North Carolina was unable to accomplish the regulatement in Spruce Pine for comment becaemploy the cell signal is still down. 

On September 27, the Town of Spruce Pine posted on its Facebook page, “Town Hall will not uncover today. Plrelieve pray for our police and uncover labors personnel as they regulate aelevatencies today.”

After uncoveration, in a statement to Hunterbrook, Sibelco wrote that it has “temporarily crelieveed operations at the Spruce Pine facilities in response to these contests” since September 26th. The company shelp it had “validateed the protectedty of most employees and are laboring firmlaboringly to reach out those still unaccomplishable due to ongoing power outages and communication contests,” compriseing that its ” top priority remains the health, protectedty, and well-being of our employees, as well as ensuring the security of the Spruce Pine facility.”

Serious injure to roads, freight rail proximate quartz facilities

Quartz companies in the region “have employd a unite of freight rail and trucking for shipments,” according to a 2017 economic analysis readyd for the North Carolina regulatement.

Hunterbrook’s assess of imagery shows the mine is now cut off by rail from both the north and south, with multiple washouts and catastrophic injure to CSX’s Blue Ridge line north of Spruce Pine.

Images seized sealr to the mine validate that injure aextfinished the river was cut offe, with extfinished segments of railway — more than a thousand feet extfinished — washed out.

CSX, the company that runs the rail system, publishd a customer advisory on September 29 — stating that Spruce Pine was “experiencing beginant flooding and bridge injure, directing to a beginant outage.”

A local trainspotter alerts that “over 30 miles of CSX’s Blue Ridge [rail line] has been washed away,” compriseing that “it’s almost unrecognizable.”

The roads are hugely blocked, too, according to a Facebook post from local Matthew Pate. “The amount of injure is beyond words,” he shelp, compriseing that he had stopped aextfinished the highway to “help locals clear some of the debris.” 

“I asked when they foreseeed power to be revampd. They tgreater us it normpartner gets a month,” he wrote. 

More than 100 power lines in Spruce Pine are down with many dwellnts and businesses still without electricity, according to the regional electricity provider Duke Energy’s website and posts on the ground. Duke has shelp certain areas were so horriblely hit, “we’re going to have to finishly recreate parts of our system.”

Due to recent provide chain presstateives, direct times for replacement grid components have skyrocketed. On mediocre, alterer direct times currently sit at 120 weeks. 

Operations shrouded in secrecy 

Exactly how much HPQ is created — and shipped out — by these mines is not uncoverly understandn. Seaver Wang, costraightforwardor of climate and energy for The Breakthcdisadmireful Institute, called it a “protected secret” earlier this year. 

Vikram Sekar, a greater staff engineer at semicarry outor enormous Qualcomm, has scatterd a analogous perspective about the secrecy of Sibelco and its establisher subsidiary Unimin, writing that little is understandn about “Semicarry outor’s Wonka” factory. 

“They do not uncoverize how much high purity quartz is created from the facility each year. They have shrinkors sign self-promisediality consentments to go in the facility and asstateive that the labor is spread out between branch offent shrinkors, so that no one entity understands too much. They even filed a litigation aobtainst” a establisher employee who joined a competitor five years after he had left Uninim, noticed Sekar. 

In an interwatch with Hunterbrook, Sekar shelp that it’s difficult to understand what benevolent of injure this hurricane will have — becaemploy of the deficiency of uncover adviseation about the company. But, he says, he presumes that “if there’s only going to be carryation defers, I leank we’d recover pretty speedyly.” He shelp his caring is that companies in the industry have stockpiles of HPQ. 

Asked whether the storm had impacted operations, Sibelco did not promptly reply to Hunterbrook’s ask for comment. In a statement to The Verge, which alerted on this story earlier today, The Quartz Corp, another company in the region, shelp: “We are in a phase of assessing the situation and it is far too timely to comment on the impact to high purity quartz production.” 

Yinan Wang, a geologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, tgreater Hunterbrook that even if other high-quality quartz mines were set up elsewhere in the proximate future, it would get cut offal months to create the benevolent of facility essential to upgrade the material.

“There’s an entire procedure or process you necessitate to do,” Wang shelp. “All of this is seally protected secrets by Sibelco, who owns the mine.”

Wang shelp he dreaded a “future global economic catastrophe” if the facility in Spruce Pine is harshly injured. “All semicarry outor production may grind to a crelieve in six months,” he posted on X. “The entire world’s economy depfinishs on Spruce Pine.” 

Although Spruce Pine is reliable for the immense beginantity of high carry outance quartz, cut offal other companies have befirearm or set up to commence mining the material. 

Jiangsu Pacific Quartz Co., Ltd. (SHA: 603688) creates HPQ in China. Earlier this year, state legislators assessd North Carolina Hoemploy Bill 385, which could ban ownership of local quartz mines by foreign entities from countries set upated as adversarial to the U.S., such as China. 

Other projects at various stages of exploration and broadenment span the globe, including in Norway, Brazil, Canada, Sri Lanka, and Australia.

In South Carolina, the silicon supplier Ferroglobe Plc (NASDAQ: GSM) last year proclaimd that it would commence production of HPQ “in the second half” of 2024, claiming capacity to create more than 300,000 tons of HPQ per year. Ferroglobe obtaind the HPQ mine in October 2023. 

As of the uncoveration of this article, Ferroglobe had not proclaimd the production or sale of any HPQ from the South Carolina mine.