GR Engineering wins Liontown contract

GR Engineering Services has won an engineering, procurement and construction contract for work on delivering and commissioning of Liontown Resources paste plant facility at its flagship Kathleen Valley project, located in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.

Valued at $71 million, work within the standalone project will help support Tony Ottaviano-led Liontown's underground mining operations at the site.

Liontown told the market that GR Engineering had progressed the design, procurement and initial site works under an early works agreement - which it said would deliver the paste plant in a timely fashion.

Last month, the West Perth-based lithium hopeful said construction at Kathleen Valley was 85 per cent complete, while its processing plant completion rate sat at 90 per cent. With these variables, the company said it was confident of initial production by the middle of the year. 

Its paste plant will be comprised of two trains able to produce up to 160 cubic metres of paste per hour and has been incorporated towards Liontown's plan to expand its operations to 4 million tonnes per annum.

Mr Ottaviano said the contract marked another important step in Liontown's push for production, while GR Engineering managing director Tony Patrizi said the company was keen to deliver at Kathleen Valley.

"We see this contract award as a strong endorsement of GR Engineering’s proven process design record and EPC delivery capability," he said.

"We look forward to continue working with the Liontown team on the successful and safe delivery of this project.”

In March, Liontown told the market it had secured a reduced $550 million debt facility for the project – after its existing $760 million debt funding commitment letter was nixed in January, on the back of falling lithium prices.

The syndicate of lenders within the debt facility are a combined mixture of banks and government-based credit agencies.

As of 9.36am WST, Liontown shares were up 0.36 per cent, trading at $1.40 per share.