PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Lithium developer Liontown Resources has awarded a A$100-million wet plant structural, mechanical, piping (SMP) and electrical and instrumentation (E&I) contract to ASX-listed Monadelphous at its Kathleen Valley project, in Western Australia.

This was the final construction contract for the Kathleen Valley operation, Liontown told shareholders on Wednesday.

The miner said that 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 vertically integrated approach of combining the SMP and E&I packages enables Monadelphous to efficiently deliver both programmes of work to a very high standard and played a large part in its successful tender,” said Liontwon MD and CEO Tony Ottaviano.

“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.”

The contract scope includes installation of 1 200 t of structural steel, 20 000 m of piping, 600 mechanical equipment items, 200 platework items, the semi-autogenous grinding mill, magnetics circuit, flotation circuit, tantalum recovery circuit, concentrate dewatering, and tails treatment.

Work under the contract is targeted for completion in mid-2024.

The 2.5-million-tonne-a-year Kathleen Valley operation will produce 500 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate, and in year six of operations the company will look to increase the project capacity to 4-million tonnes a year, delivering 700 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate.