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NRF defends $50m lifeline for lithium miner Liontown

The NRF is investing in a lithium miner with a planned processing facility, in line with its refreshed government mandate.

Kate Burgess
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Liontown Resources has received taxpayer funding to boost liquidity and lithium production. Shutterstock.

National Reconstruction Fund CEO David Gall has denied suggestions a $50 million investment into struggling lithium miner Liontown Resources is a government bailout, even as the company's largest shareholder Gina Rinehart passed on the deal.

Liontown, which has been hurt by a decline in lithium prices and lower customer orders on Thursday announced a $266 million fully underwritten institutional placement, with the NRF stumping up $50 million.

Gall said that the investment was consistent with the NRF's revised mandate because it would help newer lithium producers like Liontown achieve their ambitions to move up the lithium export value chain.

“The funding will support the ramp up of underground mining at Kathleen Valley as well as the fourth-generation lithium processing plant," he told Capital Brief. "This will include investment in state-of-the-art optimisation technologies intended to maximise production. Liontown’s long-term strategy is to become a vertically integrated supplier of lithium chemicals.”