Talison Lithium awards contract for Greenbushes expansion

Talison Lithium has awarded a $23.5 million contract to Kerman Contracting to construct a new bulk storage facility at Port of Bunbury in Western Australia.

The new facility will supplement Talison’s $512 million expansion of its Greenbushes lithium operation and store its spodumene concentrate prior to export.

Kerman managing director Chris Kerman said, “We are very pleased to secure this construction contract directly with Talison Lithium, and it complements our company’s strong focus on the significant expansion of the lithium industry in Western Australia.”

Kerman will construct a 50,000t bulk storage facility on top of the associated material handling circuits.

Construction works commenced recently and are estimated to reach completion in October 2019.

Talison previously awarded Kerman a contract to construct a new crushing and screening circuit for MSP Engineering at its Greenbushes expansion project. The expansion is expected to deliver an extra 520,000t per year (t/y) of lithium concentrate.

The Greenbushes concentrate plant will be commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2020, with the possibility of a second plant being commissioned in 2022.

In July, Talison awarded the WestStar-owned construction company SIMPEC with a $2 million contract to design and construct water tanks for its plant processing at Greenbushes.

The Greenbushes area is around 90km south-east of the Port of Bunbury.