The contract has a fixed price of A$87.8 million, with GR agreeing to take $7.5 million of the cost in Bellevue shares.
Bellevue said the share payment aligned GR with the project and reduced the company’s pre-production funding requirements.
It comes after Bellevue reached agreement with GR for preliminary works in May.
With the award of the contract, Bellevue said it had now locked in 90% of pre-production expenditure, via contracts or tenders, protecting the $254 million project from inflationary pressures.
“The appointment of GRES to build our processing plant means we have yet another tier one contractor helping ensure we meet all our operating and financial targets,” Bellevue managing director Steve Parsons said.
“GRES knows the Bellevue project well, having been involved in the early studies. And they are extremely experienced in designing and building gold plants in WA.
“Their readiness to accept Bellevue shares as part-payment is a strong vote of confidence in our project and the outlook for our company.”
The plant has been designed to be expandable to 1.2Mtpa at no additional cost.
The design of the crushing circuit has been optimised to maximise renewable energy usage by incorporating higher throughput rates, enabling its use to rise and fall in line the availability of renewable energy while not restricting overall throughput.
The company said by optimising the power demand curve to better align with energy peaks and troughs in the generation of power from renewable energy sources, it will create the optionality for the crushing circuit to maximise crushing in peak renewable energy generation periods.
Bellevue has also been advised by the Environmental Protection Authority that it has successfully completed the environmental review process, ensuring it remains on track for production in the second half of next year.
Preliminary guidance for the first 12 months of commercial production is 180,000-200,000oz at all-in sustaining costs of $1000-1100/oz.
Production in the first five years is forecast to average 200,000ozpa at AISC of $1000-1100/oz.
The project is set to generate average pre-tax life-of-mine free cashflow of $231 million per annum for first 10 years at a gold price of $2500/oz.
The Bellevue project is just outside Leinster in Western Australia.
Bellevue shares last traded at 67c, valuing the company at $691 million.
