There has been a progressive slowdown across the board at the Anglo American' Woodsmith Mine but for some soft engineering the Ladycross shaft has now been boxed so from next week access into the tunnel and its boring machine that has been slightly squeezed by the mudstone will be pushed above and beyond over the festive season.

The Lockwood shaft site has had a good tidy up and like the Ladycross shaft site these will be relandscaped and compressed until the construction is completed for ventilation, egress and continuation purposes once the ramp up is approved.

The Service Shaft is at a depth of 794m with produles entering the top section of the Sandstone layer proving it to be dryer than expected.  The production shaft has almost caught up at 712m with the second SBR to be put on care and maintenance until the MTS shaft meets with the TBM and the Top Brass decide it’s full steam ahead, most likely mid 2025.  With each of the SBR’s at best about 5m per day using one rather large vacuum, then kibbles to hoist the downside topside a steel ring wall is presently being created around the Service Shaft to prevent any ingress or wobble.  Each of the tubbing sections weigh about 3 tonnes and a manipulator arm is being used to set these ready for the liquid concrete to be poured.  It is intended that the SBR’s are to continue to the bottom of the shafts and the engineers are confident that any contingency plans will not be required. Probes are drilling 50m down with 40m being excavated so any unexpected is expected and the mine will be productive in a few more years.  The production shaft is expected to hit the polyhalite with the service shaft to level shortly after giving them time to build a cavern with room for manoeuvre of the excavation syndicate equipment.

As costs go up commodities go down and depending on the restructure of the balance sheet the project is good to go.  With the Brass at Anglo American refocusing its restructure and demerger and a syndication partner to be announced for Woodsmith very shortly there is not much media speculation about a further takeover bid within the next 12 to 18 months.

""We are making excellent progress with our portfolio simplification to create an exciting and differentiated investment proposition focused on our world-class copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients assets - all future-enabling products. This highly cash generative and much higher margin portfolio will offer greater resilience through cycles with the benefit of significant high quality and well sequenced growth options, including a clear path to increase annual copper production to more than one million tonnes by the early 2030's.""

The value of the product polyhalite, including yields, soil health, organics, the confidence in the product remains with global sales agreements in place.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2024/oct/24/rollercoaster-designer-jo...

To Summarise the concerns raised:

1. Is the project going to happen?
2. What is the ‘Slowdown Impact’ on jobs?

With a total of 2000 employees across the project, 1400 from the local area, these are to be reduced to 800 with 450 people lost and another 450 to go, 75% from the local area during 2025.  All have been informed and Anglo have taken it on board to redeploy,  retrain all the people as best they can, many of those highly skilled have been transferred to Redpath and Strabag other operations,  and Anglo are to temporarily close the Scarborough HQ and move to the Whitby Mine site where the welfare building is being reimagined.

There are four pillars to the Social Community in place, Livelihoods, Education, Health and Neighbourhood.  Along with the continuation of the Woodsmith Foundation it has been made crystal clear that the Social Investment is the same as it was.

There were only two complaints one from a neighbour about some mud and one from Lockwood about a hedge.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c154gqxel1eo

With regard to planning and Deployment of the S106 (Mitigations) in its eighth year, it was confirmed that the time for the boring machines has been extended from end of June 2025 to the end of March 2026.

With over 80 ha of woodland creation created with 20 more ha to carbon offset they are to enhance new woodland settings for landowners. Access Projects include Rosebury Topping, Tramper Schemes, Support Polinators (with matched funding) to enhance gardens for pollinating insects, Landscape Tree grants are also now available to support small orchards, ponds and other biodiverse projects such as meeting the costs of installing wooden windows for listed buildings, repurposing the black and white signs, boundary walls, a new roof at Egton, Birds on the Edge, grants for farmers who are putting lad aside for native recovery and wading birds, encouraging visitors to the Moors to payback through conservation work, employing four level 4 apprentices and to employ a new geology PHD student to assist with the Archaeology ‘Raiding the Bank’ project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hx4gdlfamo

If only I had a spare Cactus.

https://www.nydwalks.co.uk/post/hawsker-to-stainsacre-whitby