Anglo American to spend more than £500m on Woodsmith mine development near Whitby which has supported thousands of jobs

By Greg Wright
Published 10th Dec 2021, 07:33 BST
Updated 10th Dec 2021, 07:42 BST
The mining giant Anglo American plans to spend more than £500m next year to continue the development of the Woodsmith Project on the North Yorkshire coast and Teesside.The mining giant Anglo American plans to spend more than £500m next year to continue the development of the Woodsmith Project on the North Yorkshire coast and Teesside.
The mining giant Anglo American plans to spend more than £500m next year to continue the development of the Woodsmith Project on the North Yorkshire coast and Teesside.
The mining giant Anglo American plans to spend more than £500m next year to continue the development of the Woodsmith Project on the North Yorkshire coast and Teesside.

Most of the money will be spent on continuing the sinking of the two one mile deep mine shafts near Whitby and the 23 mile long transportation tunnel from Teesside.

Anglo American said in a statement: "The company is planning improvements to the design of the underground elements of the mine and infrastructure to make it more efficient, scalable and to bring it up to Anglo American’s standards."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

After nearly 12 years at the helm of the project, the businessman Chris Fraser has decided to step down as the project’s chief executive.

He has moved on to a strategic projects role for Anglo American.

The statement added: "Chris is the project’s founder and has driven it from a vision to the multi-billion pound infrastructure development that it is today. He will be replaced by Tom McCulley, who has led the successful development of the company’s huge Quellaveco copper project in Peru.

Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “We are very happy with the high quality and exciting potential of Woodsmith, with the scale and quality of the polyhalite orebody pointing to a Q1 operating cost position and strong margins.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"This is a very long-life asset and we are going to take the necessary time to get every aspect of the design right to match our long term vision and value aspirations.

“We are enormously grateful to Chris Fraser for his founding vision over some 12 years in bringing Woodsmith to reality – a project with sustainability principles at the core of its design and in the product itself.

"His dedicated leadership in progressing the project this far and integrating it into our organisation, and doing so while making considerable construction progress during the upheavals of the pandemic, also deserves enormous credit. As we move towards full project execution, it is a natural time for Chris to step into a new role and I’m pleased that we will benefit from his experience as he works with us on a number of strategic projects.