Liontown Resources has taken the next step towards securing mid-2024 first production at its Kathleen Valley Lithium project, having awarded the contract for Wet Plant Structural, Mechanical, Piping (SMP) and Electrical and Instrumentation (E&I).
Monadelphous was awarded the contract, the total value of which is approximately $100 million over nine months.
Awarding the final construction contract is a significant milestone for the Kathleen Valley Lithium Project. Combining the SMP and E&I work enables vertical integration of mechanical and electrical construction of the wet plant, providing efficiencies and underpinning confidence in the schedule to first production in mid-2024.
The contract scope includes installation of 1,200t of structural steel, 20,000m of piping, 600 mechanical equipment items, 200 platework items, the SAG mill, magnetics circuit, flotation circuit, tantalum recovery circuit, concentrate dewatering, and tails treatment.
By deploying lessons learned from industry peers the wet plant has been designed to a high specification with quality and hard-wearing materials, including polyurethane-lined steel piping and ceramic lined highwear areas, designed to reduce future maintenance requirements. In addition, the adoption of the lessons learned will be applied during the commissioning and ramp up of the plant.
The extensive tender and evaluation process reflects the importance of these critical path contracts to delivering first production.
Liontown’s Managing Director and CEO, Tony Ottaviano, said that he was pleased to have awarded the SMP and E&I contract to Tier-One contractor Monadelphous.
“The vertically integrated approach of combining the SMP and E&I packages enables Monadelphous to efficiently deliver both programs of work to a very high standard and played a large part in its successful tender,” Mr 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.
“Their demonstrated skills, capability and professionalism reflects Liontown’s expectations of a partnership. There is a clear line of sight to first spodumene production mid-next year.”
