PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Lithium miner Altura Mining on Monday said that it would "vigorously defend" legal proceedings brought by construction and engineering services provider Civmec for the recovery of payment for work undertaken at the Pilgangoora lithium project.
Civmec in 2017 was awarded the civil, construction, fabrication and commissioning work for the Pilgangoora project worth approximately A$64-million.
Civmec noted that during the course of the work, the company carried out substantial additional works beyond the scope of the contract, and also experienced delays because of Altura’s "failure to fulfill its obligations" under the contract, including engineering deliverables and the supply of free issue items.
To date, the contractor has been paid A$61.55-million and is now pursuing final payments in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, maintaining that negotiations with Altura in January 2019 had seen the lithium miner agree to pay Civmec an amount of A$2.4-million to settle the outstanding claims.
Altura on Monday denied that an agreement was reached at this time, or that Civmec was entitled to other outstanding, and, to date, unsupported claims of up to A$2.1-million.
The lithium miner said that as a result of Civmec’s three-month delay in reaching practical completion at Pilgangoora, Altura felt that liquidated damages of at least A$2.35-million were payable by Civmec in accordance with the contract, with the miner having exercised its rights to offset the liquidated damages against the outstanding amount payable and retention monies.
Altura told shareholders that Civmec’s decision to start legal proceedings was "disappointing", and added that it was confident of its legal position.