PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Western Australian government’s Department of Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety has approved lithium developer Liontown’s mining proposal and mine closure plan for a four-million tonne a year Kathleen Valley operations.  

"The receipt of approval for our mining proposal along with the works approval represents another major milestone for the Kathleen Valley project. With all key enabling permits now in place, our development team can move ahead at full pace to begin major site construction activities,” said Liontown MD and CEO Tony Ottaviano.

“This is a very exciting time for everyone involved with the company, and shareholders can look forward to steadily increasing news-flow in the weeks and months ahead as we move into the full- scale commercial development phase.”

Major site activities will now start in line with the development schedule, with construction expected to ramp up quickly over the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. Completion and commissioning is targeted by the end of the second quarter of 2024.

Two-thirds of construction tenders for Kathleen Valley have now been issued and are being progressively awarded, with contracts for all key long-lead items already executed and manufacturing commenced, and a Letter of Award issued to commence development of the 95MW hybrid power station in partnership with Zenith Energy

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, Liontown would look to increase he project capacity to 4-million tonnes a year, delivering 700 000 t/y of spodumene concentrate, within six years.

Based on this production scenario, the Kathleen Valley operation is expected to have a mine life of 23 years, and will generate life-of-mine free cash flows of A$12.2-billion.