Liontown Resources has awarded Monadelphous Group the structural mechanical piping (SMP) and electrical and instrumentation (EI) contract for its Kathleen Valley lithium project in Western Australia.
“I’m pleased to announce that we have awarded the SMP and EI contract to Tier-1 contractor Monadelphous,” Liontown managing director and chief executive officer Tony Ottaviano said.
“Valued at approximately $100 million this marks the final major construction contract to be awarded for Kathleen Valley.”
Including projects like carbon steel fabrication, the contract is set to be carried out over nine months, commencing in August with Monadelphous mobilising to site under a letter of intent.
“The vertically integrated approach of combining the SMP and EI packages enables Monadelphous to efficiently deliver both programs of work to a very high standard and played a large part in its successful tender,” Ottaviano said.
“Monadelphous has a large resources pool, experience in the hard rock lithium sector and a proven track record of delivering large-scale multi-disciplinary projects in Western Australia, which came through strongly throughout the evaluation process.”
The contract scope includes the installation of 1200 tonnes of structural steel, 20,000m of piping, 600 mechanical equipment items, 200 platework items, the semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill, magnetics circuit, flotation circuit, tantalum recovery circuit, concentrate dewatering and tails treatment.
Liontown underlined that the wet plant has been designed with hard-wearing materials, including polyurethane-lined steel piping and ceramic lined high-wear areas, designed to reduce future maintenance requirements.
“Their demonstrated skills, capability and professionalism reflects Liontown’s expectations of a partnership,” Ottaviano said of Monadelphous.
“There is a clear line of sight to first spodumene production mid next year.”
Liontown is emerging as a Tier-1 battery minerals producer, with Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting recently becoming a substantial shareholder.