Leading mining and civil contractor NRW Holdings Limited (ASX: NWH) has today announced the award of a material contract to wholly owned subsidiary Primero Group for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) of the Mt Holland Concentrator project for Covalent Lithium – a joint venture between Wesfarmers and SQM.
Primero has been awarded the EPC contract that will process ‘run of mine’ ore at a rate of circa 2mtpa and produce an output of circa 400,000 tpa of spodumene concentrate to feed the company’s integrated Lithium Hydroxide conversion refinery situated at Kwinana. The Mt Holland project has been worked on in various development phases over the past 18 months between the Covalent and Primero teams, with the planning and works now culminating in the full award of the EPC delivery contract.
The project scope covers the vertical delivery of engineering design of all disciplines, procurement of all equipment and materials, site construction, commissioning, and performance testing of the spodumene concentrator at the Mt Holland site located in Western Australia. The full execution will commence immediately with site works planned to commence in October and an expected peak workforce of 350 personnel.
Primero Managing Director Cameron Henry commented:
‘The award of the Mt Holland EPC contract is the culmination of an 18-month journey with the Covalent Lithium team and demonstrates the trust and solid working relationship between the groups in the development of the project. This project is not only a flagship project for Primero and our parent company NRW Holdings, but also a major project for Western Australia and the further development of the state’s battery minerals supply chain. We look forward to the challenge and ongoing relationship with Covalent.’
NRW CEO Jules Pemberton also commented on the award:
‘We are pleased to see the continued growth of the Primero business and in particular the scale of projects and quality of clients they continue to attract to the group. The project has created opportunities for the combined businesses and provides a great platform for other clients to understand the depth, capability and capacity of the group as a whole from early project inception and feasibility through turnkey multi-discipline delivery and further.’
