Fire rips through Port Adelaide sulphur shed
Sydney (7 August)
A fire has ripped through an Aurizon-operated shed – located in Port Adelaide – that stores sulphur bound for BHP’s Olympic Dam project, a mixed copper mine and smelter, Lithos has learned.
The fire broke out early on 6 August and burned for hours. “[But it] has been contained and [Aurizon is] continuing to work through site assessments and recovery activities,” Aurizon told Lithos later in the day.
The Aurizon-operated shed stores sulphur that BHP burns to produce sulphuric acid – a solvent used to extract copper metal from ore – at Olympic Dam. In 2009, BHP applied to increase its Olympic Dam sulphur consumption from 800,000 tonnes per year to 1.8 million tonnes per year, as part of a wider project expansion.
BHP imports large volumes of sulphur through Port Adelaide’s Outer Harbor, it said in 2011. It transports sulphur to Olympic Dam – located about 570 kilometres from Port Adelaide – on sealed rail wagons, it added at the time.
The company is supporting Aurizon and Flinders Port, the shed’s owner, as needed, Lithos understands.
BHP produced 221,300 tonnes of refined copper at Olympic Dam over the July 2025 – June 2026 fiscal year, up 3% from 214,000 tonnes in 2024-25, it said in a July operations review. The company achieved a 20-year production record at Olympic Dam in 2025-26, it added.
BHP plans to slightly scale back copper production across its South Australian operations – including Olympic Dam and three other sites – in 2026-27, likely because of an unplanned conveyor belt failure at its Carrapateena mine in July 2026. The company expects the Carrapateena conveyor belt failure to constrain copper production for two months.
BHP has set its South Australian production guidance for 2026-27 at between 290,000 tonnes and 320,00 tonnes of copper, down from 320,700 tonnes in 2025-26, the company said.
BHP’s global copper production fell 3% to 1.95 million tonnes in 2025-26. The company expects to cut its global copper output to between 1.65 million and 1.8 million tonnes in 2026-27, largely because of ore grade declines at its Escondida mine in Chile.
By Avinash Govind