Posted on 16 Jul 2024
Australia-listed lithium developer Liontown Resources said Monday it has inked a short-term spodumene concentrate offtake deal with China’s Beijing Sinomine International Trade (BSIT).
Under the 10-month definitive binding agreement, Liontown will supply up to 100,000 dry metric tonnes (dmt) of spodumene concentrate from its Kathleen Valley project to BSIT. The supply period will start from 30 September 2024, Kallanish Power Materials learns.
“Securing a near-term offtake with an established lithium refiner to sell initial volumes over the ramp-up period, de-risks sales during our ramp-up of the plant towards nameplate capacity,” says Liontown’s ceo Tony Ottaviano. “This complements our existing long-term offtakes, which we will progressively bring into effect over the next 12 months as we increase production towards nameplate to support our offtake commitments.”
Liontown already has long-term offtake agreements with Tesla, LGES and Ford.
Early this month, Liontown secured a $250 million funding deal for the Kathleen Valley project from the South Korean battery major LGES, replacing an AUD 550m ($363.2m) worth of bank and government debt. In addition, Liontown also extended its existing 5-year offtake agreement with LGES by a further 10 years. The deal will see the company supply 700,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate to LGES in the first 5 years and 1.5 million t in the next 10 years.
However, Liontown’s shares were down 3% on Monday. It was trading at AUD 0.97/share at the time of writing.
The Kathleen Valley lithium project is anticipated to produce 500,000 t/y of spodumene concentrate in the first five years of operations. The project’s first production is expected by the end of this month.
Source:Kallanish Power Materials
