Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King and Federal Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell have welcomed Export Finance Australia’s (EFA) commitment to the Kathleen Valley lithium project.
Kathleen Valley is a Tier-1 battery metals asset located 680km northeast of Perth in Western Australia. It’s expected to create about 800 jobs during construction, and about 600 jobs on an ongoing basis.
On October 19, Liontown Resources – the company developing Kathleen Valley – announced that EFA would provide $220 million to the project through an export credit agency (ECA) facility, alongside a group of commercial banks and funders.
The ECA facility from EFA is expected to allow export credit agency counterparts such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-Sure) to participate in the project.
However, this is subject to EXIM and K-Sure meeting the eligibility criteria, as well as credit and risk requirements being met.
EFA finance’s provision is also subject to all financing conditions and regulatory approvals being met.
“This project will help to diversify global critical mineral supply chains, including through supplying to Korea and the United States,” Farrell said.
King said that Australian critical minerals projects are vital to ensuring the world has a stable, reliable source of materials to power the energy transition.
“Global demand for critical minerals needed for electric vehicles and battery technologies is increasing as the world moves to decarbonise, and Australia is key to meeting this demand,” she said.
Liontown announced on October 20 that it had launched a $365 million equity raise at $1.80 per share.
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