ExxonMobil Announces Plans for Lithium Mine in Arkansas

Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas) has announced plans to move ahead with drilling for lithium on 120,000 Arkansas acres it purchased earlier this year. "Lithium is essential to the energy transition, and ExxonMobil has a leading role to play in paving the way for electrification," said Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, in a company press release.

The acres involved are in southern Arkansas' Smackover formation, whose subsurface brine has shown to be among the richest lithium reserves of its kind in North America. The project, branded as Mobil Lithium, expects to begin producing the substance by 2027, and to become a significant player in the electric vehicle battery market by 2030.

Industrial Info Resources had previously noted that ExxonMobil's purchase of Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD) (Irving, Texas) would link two companies with lithium interests. While that transaction has yet to be finalized, with possible review by the Federal Trade Commission pending, ExxonMobil's march toward diversification continues.

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This area of Arkansas has been home to a certain amount of oil production over the decades, and because of that, the area's geology is well known. ExxonMobil plans to access the brine resources by drilling 10,000-foot wells with conventional oil and gas methods. After that, "ExxonMobil will utilize direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology to separate lithium from the saltwater. The lithium will then be converted onsite to battery-grade material. The remaining saltwater will be re-injected into the underground reservoirs. The DLE process produces fewer carbon emissions than hard rock mining and requires significantly less land."

Many experts see a list of advantages to U.S.-produced lithium. Domestic production reduces the need for imports (similar to the advantages of domestic oil and gas) and it avoids human rights concerns about conscripted child labor involved in mining in developing countries, along with issues surrounding those nations' lax standards for disposing of the millions of gallons of contaminated water released in the purification process.

ExxonMobil is among several companies eyeing the lithium-rich brine fields of Arkansas. Earlier this year Standard Lithium (Vancouver, British Columbia) announced plans to proceed with an agreement made with TETRA Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TTI) (The Woodlands, Texas) to "brine production rights on approximately 27,000 net acres of brine leases located in Columbia and Lafayette Counties, Arkansas."

As far back as 2006, TETRA had announced an investment of $100 million toward producing bromine from southern Arkansas Smackover formation brine, later turning its attention to the growing lithium market as electric vehicle adoption began to ramp up. Standard Lithium, in connection with TETRA, also expects to produce commercial lithium by 2027.

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Why This Area?
Why is southern Arkansas becoming the Permian Basin of lithium? It's sort of a chemical industry version of what to do with produced water. A number of chemical manufacturers in the area use brine in their processing, and some lithium companies have expressed interest in having a go at this water after it's no longer needed for chemical production.

This was the source of an earlier Standard Lithium memorandum of understanding (MOU), with brine processor Lanxess (Cologne, Germany) "to demonstrate the commercial viability of battery-grade lithium extraction from waste brine (tail brine) of Lanxess's three existing bromine processing facilities in southern Arkansas in May 2018." Lanxess was already extracting bromine from brine, then reinjecting the brine underground. Standard's MOU was in regard to further processing the brine to remove its lithium.

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