Posted on 03 May 2024
Australia-listed Liontown Resources said Wednesday it has crushed the first ore at its Kathleen Valley lithium project in Western Australia.
Calling it a “huge milestone” for Kathleen Valley, Liontown chief operating officer Adam Smits says: “We’ve got first ore running up the crusher. It’s been almost a year of stockpiling ore to get to this moment. The intent is to run that crusher, put 100,000 of ore through, and stockpile ahead of wet plant commissioning.”
The crushed ore will now be fed through the wet plant, whose commissioning is already underway, Kallanish notes. The lithium project is on target for first production in mid-2024, the executive adds.
“Commissioning of the dry plant commenced in late March with the team energising equipment and conducting thorough checks of the systems to ensure everything works in accordance with the design,” Liontown notes.
Last month, Liontown secured a AUD 550 million ($363.2m) debt facility to fund the ramp-up of the Kathleen Valley project. The facility was secured from international and domestic syndicates, as well as government agencies, including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank Limited, Societe Generale, Export Finance Australia (EFA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).
Earlier this week, the company said in its quarterly report it had completed 85% of Kathleen Valley, and approximately 90% of the process plant as of 31 March.
“The March quarter saw tremendous progress across all major work fronts at Kathleen Valley, with construction of the process plant, the critical path to first production, being 90% complete on an earned value basis,” Liontown managing director Tony Ottaviano said in the report. “We remain confident in our ability to deliver our tier-1 lithium project on budget and schedule to first production by mid-2024.”
Kathleen Valley is expected to produce 500,000 tonnes/year of spodumene concentrate in the first five years of operation.
Source:Kallanish
