MACA will continue its open pit mining services at Pilgangoora including drill and blast, and load and haul duties.

It is anticipated the contract extension will generate circa $70 million in revenue for MACA across the 12-month term to November 2022. At September 2021, MACA’s work in hand position stood at $3.1 billion.

MACA chief executive officer Mike Sutton said he is excited by his company’s renewed partnership with Pilbara Minerals.

“MACA is very pleased to be able to continue working with Pilbara Minerals at the Pilgangoora Lithium-Tantalum project, having commenced operations on site in 2017,” he said.

“We strongly value the collaborative working relationship established with the Pilbara Minerals team over the previous four years and are proud to be an ongoing part of this project.

“For MACA, this extension secures our strong position in the Pilbara region and also provides continued involvement in the lithium industry.”

Located in the Pilbara, 120km from Port Hedland, the Pilgangoora ore body is one of the largest hard rock lithium deposits in the world.

The two-million-tonne-per-annum Pilgangoora operation has two plants at different stages of operation – the Pilgan plant and the Ngungaju plant.

The former currently operates at around 350,000 tonnes per annum while the latter is set for a stated restart during the December quarter, as Pilbara Minerals targets up to 200,000 dry metric tonnes by mid-2022.

In March, MACA secured a hire and maintenance contract with CITIC Pacific Mining Management (CPM) at the Cape Preston Sino iron operation in Western Australia.

A month before that, MACA won a $95 million contract Ramelius Resources at its Tampia gold project in Western Australia – its second Ramelius contract in two years.