Largest Spruce Pine quartz mine restarts after Helene battered mountain town

Two weeks after shutting down its Spruce Pine facilities ahead of Hurricane Helene, Belgian mining company Sibelco announced Thursday it has restarted operations in the Western North Carolina town that contains the world’s highest-purity quartz.

“Both production and shipments are progressively ramping up to full capacity,” the company said in a statement, though it did not share how long this progress would take. Last week, Sibelco said its initial assessment of the sites had revealed only “minor damage,” but power remained out even a week after the storm.

Heavy rainfalls from Helene flooded the North Toe River and battered Spruce Pine , a mountain town in Mitchell County with around 2,000 residents. In the storm’s aftermath, many nationwide inquired about the status of the local quartz mines that are critical to the supply chains of semiconductors, solar panels, and other devices.

Few, if any, other places on earth match Spruce Pine quartz for quality. A lack of water in the region around 380 million years ago helped produce an ultra-pure crystalline mineral, and when it comes to manufacturing the semiconductor wafers that get cut into chips, purity is essential. Even a tiny impurity, such 50 parts per billion, can ruin final products.

“The more perfect the atomic structure in your silicon, the more easily and freely electrons can flow around,” wrote author Ed Conway in his 2023 book “Material World,” which dedicates a section to the Spruce Pine mines.

During most of the 20th century, local miners extracted mica and feldspar from the Mitchell County sites. Over the past three decades, new technological demands have made high-purity quartz one of North Carolina’s most important exports.

Between 2019 and 2023, Sibelco said its Spruce Pine sites produced almost 60% more high-quality quartz. And last year, the company announced it would invest $200 million into the site by 2025 to double production. It is now the largest employer in Mitchell County, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce.

The company sells its quartz under the brand name IOTA. Its mines are north of downtown in an area called the Spruce Pine Mining District. On Google Maps they look like wide, white sandy beaches.

Sibelco is one of two quartz mining operations in Spruce Pine, with a competitor named The Quartz Corp forming in 2011. While Sibelco is headquartered Antwerp, Belgium, The Quartz Corp is based in Spruce Pine.

In an Oct. 2 online post , The Quartz Corp said its initial plant inspection suggested “that damage is mostly concentrated around ancillary units.”

“It is still too early to assess when TQC will resume operations as this will also depend on the rebuilding of local infrastructure,” the company said.

The News & Observer reported roads and rail lines around the town suffered significant damage when the storm passed through on Sept. 27.

Despite its continued closure, The Quartz Corp said supply shortfalls are not likely.

“We operate a long supply chain and like many organizations we added more focus on our resilience planning post-Covid,” the company said, noting it has backup stock of finished products.