How a tiny town hit by Helene could upend the global semiconductor chip industry

• Virtually all of the world's supply of high-purity quartz, a mineral required to produce semiconductors, comes from a tiny North Carolina town that was devastated by Hurricane Helene.
• "If something were to happen to these mines, it can put the entire industry on its ear, period," one industry expert said.
• The two companies operating mines in Spruce Pine have paused operations since Thursday. The Quartz Corp. says they have "no visibility" as to when activity will resume.

Virtually all of the world's supply of a mineral that is critical to semiconductor production comes from one tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains that has been devastated by Hurricane Helene.

Spruce Pine, North Carolina has no running water or electricity, more than a week after Helene ripped through the town of 2,200. Roads and railways in and out of the area are severely damaged, according to local officials.

Mines in Spruce Pine produce the world's purest form of quartz, which plays a central role in chip manufacturing.

Now, the town's exceedingly valuable supply of high-purity quartz is at risk, threatening to cripple the $600 billion global semiconductor industry.

The natural disaster unfolding in Spruce Pine also highlights the continued instability of global supply chains, more than four years after Covid-19 drove home to Americans how dependent they had become on imported goods.

Two companies, Sibelco and The Quartz Corp., extract the high-purity quartz in Spruce Pine, refine it and export it to manufacturing facilities based primarily in China and other parts of Asia.

Much of the refined, high-purity quartz is then used to create a vessel called a crucible, which holds silicon as it is melted and transformed into the wafers on