Rio Tinto’s salt operations at Port Hedland in Western Australian are being secured as Tropical Cyclone Lua comes closer to land.
The cyclone was upgraded from a category 2 to a more powerful category 3 system early on Friday, with gales expected to develop in coastal areas between Whim Creek and Bidyadanga, including Port Hedland, in the Pilbara region of WA early on Saturday.
Destructive winds with gusts of more than 200 kilometres per hour are forecast near the cyclone centre.
A Rio Tinto spokesman said the miner’s Dampier Salt business, the world’s largest salt exporter, was in the final tie-down stage.
He said Rio Tinto’s port and rail operations were being prepared for the cyclone.
Meanwhile, Woodside is preparing to reduce personnel to essential staff only at its key North West Shelf gas processing plant and adjacent Pluto liquefied natural gas project near Karratha.
Production continues at the North West Shelf, while construction of the Pluto project is nearing completion and is not yet producing gas.
“Employees are attending work at both the KGP (Karratha gas plant) and Pluto sites today,” a Woodside spokesman said.
“Woodside continues to monitor the situation and, if necessary, will down-man the sites in line with normal procedures.”
BHP Billiton would not say whether it had evacuated staff or curtailed production at its Pilbara sites, but was “monitoring all cyclone activity closely and will shut operations if we believe that is the safest course of action”.
“If there is any material impact on our production, we will report it in our quarterly production report,” a BHP Billiton spokeswoman said.
Port Hedland Authority spokesman Steed Farrell said the port had been closed early on Friday and all vessels had been sent to safer waters.
Non-essential staff had been sent home, Mr Farrell said.
Residents of Port Hedland and east to Bidyadanga have been warned of the very dangerous storm tide expected as the cyclone centre approaches the coast.
Tides are likely to rise significantly above the normal high tide mark with damaging waves and very dangerous flooding, the Bureau of Meteorology says.
