Lithium, an alkali metal used in the manufacture of increasingly important lithium ion batteries, is a word residents of south Arkansas should get used to hearing.

This summer, oil and gas mega-corporation Exxon Mobil paid over $100 million for 120,000 gross acres in the Smackover Formation in south Arkansas.

South Arkansas, and the Smackover formation generally, is an attractive prospect for lithium production because of the presence of lithium in the region’s subterranean brine, along with existing oil and brine extraction infrastructure.

According to a May article in the Wall Street Journal that revealed the purchase, Exxon Mobil “bought 120,000 gross acres in the Smackover formation of southern Arkansas from an exploration company called Galvanic Energy.” The WSJ article goes on to quote Galvanic Energy’s estimate that the purchased area “could have 4 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, enough to power 50 million EVs [electric vehicles].”

On Monday, Nov. 13, Exxon announced that it has begun drilling its first lithium well in south Arkansas, near Magnolia. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders held a press conference celebrating the announcement on the same day.

“If this first venture is successful, you can expect wells all around south Arkansas. I’m not being dramatic when I say this has the potential to transform our state,” the governor said.

According to the same release, ExxonMobil is targeting 2027 for commercial lithium production and, by 2030, “aims to be producing enough lithium to supply the manufacturing needs of well over a million EVs per year.”

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Standard Lithium (SLI) is the original player in the south Arkansas lithium race. Their first project started as a partnership with LANXESS, which operates a plant in El Dorado that extracts bromine from brine. SLI currently has a demonstration and researcb plant that uses

For more information about the geological history of south Arkansas’ brine, see the Arkansas Geological Survey’s entry on brine in Arkansas.

LANXESS’ existing infrastructure to extract lithium from brine after bromine has been extracted from it.

Their second project, according to the company, will be based around a location 15 miles west of Magnolia and proposes the construction of a standalone, $1.3 billion lithium extraction facility.

In a recent report by Standard Lithium, CEO Robert Mintak reiterated the company’s “aim of delivering commercial production” in 2026 for the first project and 2027 for the second.

A third company, Tetra Chemicals, Tetra Technologies, is “studying the feasibility of building a plant that would add thousands of tons of lithium extraction capacity, and recently drilled its second test well near Magnolia,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

WHAT MAKES SOUTH ARKANSAS SPECIAL?

The evolution of resource extraction in south Arkansas is sequential, with each “boom” slowly but surely leading to another.

The story begins — ignoring the vast geologic and chemical processes that produced the resources — with the oil boom, which started in 1921 and transformed El Dorado overnight as prospectors, companies and cold hard cash flooded the region for a decade.

Ancient subterranean saltwater called brine, long considered a nuisance by oil drillers, became the next new hot prospect by the 1950s as, according to the Arkansas Geological Survey, chemists “discovered that the Smackover brines had high bromine content –4,000 to 4,600 parts per million, or about seventy times greater than that of modern ocean water.”

Bromine extraction from brine has been a major industry in south Arkansas since that discovery and south Arkansas is currently the only producer of it in the U.S. That same brine also contains lithium, leading to the current ever-increasing interest in the

region.

South Arkansas has existing infrastructure and regulation for brine extraction due to the longstanding bromine industry in the region.

In a press release on Nov. 13, Exxon announced it will use “conventional oil and gas drilling methods” for brine extraction and use direct lithium extraction (DLE) to separate the lithium from the brine.

Direct lithium extraction represents a number of processing technologies that allow for direct extraction of lithium ions from solutions.

The lithium “will then be converted onsite to battery-grade material” and the leftover brine will be re-injected into the reservoirs from which it came.

The release also states that “southwest Arkansas has a history as an oil and natural gas producer, and the region’s geology is well understood. ExxonMobil is working with local and state officials to enable the successful scale-up of Arkansas’ emerging lithium industry.”

Standard Lithium has announced finds that represent “some of the highest reported lithium brine concentrations in North America” for its proposed Southwest Arkansas Project. The company projects commercial production for their standalone facility to reach 30,000 tons annually of battery-quality lithium hydroxide, with the potential to produce up to 35,000 tons per year over a 20-year operating life.

POTENTIAL ECONOMIC IMPACTS

During the 1920s oil boom in south Arkansas, El Dorado grew from a town of from 3,800 to an estimated 40,000 within a span of five years, according to geologist and El Dorado aficionado Richard Mason.

The lithium rush is a boom for a new age and economic impacts likely cannot be predicted based on the past, but a best case scenario should offer unique and substantial economic opportunities for south Arkansas that mirror past booms.

Brian Umberson, an Arkansan who among other things is a National Science Foundation I-Corps mentor, spoke with a News-Times reporter about his thoughts on what a lithium boom in south Arkansas could mean.

Umberson has this year published two columns in Arkansas Money and Politics about lithium in south Arkansas in which he writes about the potential economic boon that could result from it.

The extraction and processing plants proposed by companies such as Exxon and SLI alone could bring many jobs to the region.

“You’d be amazed — they’ll need chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, welders, metal fabricators, machinists… In the oil field, stuff breaks down and it’s hydraulic, pneumatic, run by electricity, there’s all sorts of different disciplines taken into consideration,” Umberson said.

Oil field workers could find themselves valuable as well, thanks to the need for companies to utilize existing wells and drill new ones in the hunt for higher concentrations of lithium.

“There’s going to be a bunch of high paid jobs… Exxon are going to have to drill wells and it’s going to be super expensive starting with drilling wells… It mirrors the oil field, because this is why Exxon can get into it,” he continued.

Exxon’s proposed lithium processing plant near Magnolia will be “one of the world’s largest lithium processing facilities,” according to the WSJ, and the same article quotes an unnamed source who estimates that “the three companies’ projects would require around 6,000 jobs and north of 1,600 trucks by 2028.”

In both of his columns, Umberson also raises the possibility of lithium extraction industry spawning other, related industries in the region such as battery manufacturing. Another added factor in this consideration is Arkansas’ location between the I-65 corridor to the east, where automotive manufacturing is concentrated, and Tesla’s Gigafactories to the west in Texas and Nevada.

Umberson has also outlined in a column his prediction that Arkansas’ steel industry’s proficiency in production of advanced highstrength steel coupled with the logistical and financial challenges of shipping heavier components could expand the state’s hand in battery and EV manufacturing.

“It’s not out of the question for Tesla to put a battery plant in south Arkansas and to have steel frames for batteries being made in north Arkansas [and] lithium in south Arkansas,” Umberson said, with completed batteries then being shipped, for example, to Texas.

Towns in the area, particularly Magnolia but also El Dorado, Camden and others, could face infrastructure issues simultaneously with great opportunity from an influx of workers and the logistical needs of large processing plants.

Umberson predicted that, if and when the larger projects proposed by companies like Exxon and SLI begin, Magnolia could find itself hosting many drilling workers while El Dorado might be the host for corporate workers and management.

“Both cities — Magnolia and El Dorado — need to look at project incentives and deductions or project tax breaks to incentive [the companies],” Umberson said, pointing to the growth and tax dollar retention of Jonesboro as a potential model for local cities to follow.

The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental group, in August 2022 produced a report called “Potential Lithium Extraction in the United States: Environmental, Economic, and Policy Implications” that acknowledges the likely incoming boom of lithium extraction in the United States and proposes recommendations for economic and environmental policy aimed at the growing industry.

The group in the report advises that infrastructure and development will be necessary.

“In some states, lithium extraction may generate significant economic benefits including increases in state GDP, tax revenue, employment in the mining sector, and strategic advantages such as proximity to electric vehicle manufacturers. However, local economic benefits may not be impactful if adequate policy guidelines and workforce development partnerships are not in place,” the report states.

POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

Lithium currently is extracted through three methods — direct lithium extraction (DLE) from brine, evaporative concentration from brine and surface mining from hard rock and/or clays.

Each project proposed in south Arkansas is centered around the exclusive use of DLE.

The Nature Conservancy’s report looks at the possible environmental impacts of each method of lithium extraction, including DLE.

In this report, the authors write that “while all extraction methods have the potential for some environmental impact, DLE has the potential to have a smaller environmental impact than either surface mining or evaporative extraction.”

Potential environmental disturbance would be less dramatic in regions with a pre-existing industrial footprint, which includes those proposed projects in Arkansas excluding Exxon’s, which was not proposed at the time of the report.

The most substantial environmental concern from this type of lithium mining is likely the brine extraction itself, which has been regulated in Arkansas after spills and unregulated dumping of saltwater into the Ouachita River, and the post-extraction processing of the brine for lithium.

Umberson in his columns raises the possibility that companies digging and utilizing wells for lithium brine extraction may harness geothermal power to add to the “green” bonafides of the projects. Federal financial incentives, such as the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Wells of Opportunity (WOO): Amplify II & ReAmplify, which provides up to $14.5 million to establish the commercial viability of geothermal energy production in existing oil and gas wells, might encourage companies who now own or lease land scattered with disused oil and gas wells to take advantage.

“The geothermal opportunity is limited to older oil and gas wells that are close to 15-20,000 feet deep, because they have the highest heat potential. The typical brine wells are 7-10,000 feet deep and most have been marginal for geothermal heat to produce electricity. Some of the fields are mixed with brine and oil wells so there could be access,” Umberson said.

WHERE DOES IT GO FROM HERE?

DLE used as the sole method of extracting lithium from brine is currently the biggest question mark in the burgeoning industry.

Lithium is extracted from brine in places including Chile, where 61 percent of global lithium carbonate was produced in 2021, according to Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

However, DLE is generally currently used in conjunction with methods, such as evaporative pools for extraction from brine.

Short seller Hindenburg Research alleged in early 2022 that SLI’s plan to extract lithium from brine in Arkansas “is based on technology that does not work,” according to Reuters, “sending Standard’s shares down 27% and erasing $305.7 million from the company’s market value” at the time.

SLI denied the allegations, pointing to its demonstration facility at LANXESS and saying in a statement they have been “successfully operating the demonstration plant at the facility in Arkansas since May 2020 and advancing the project towards commercialization.”

On Monday, Nov. 20, Standard Lithium reported that it has processed 15 million gallons of Smackover brine at its demonstration plant in El Dorado since it began operating.

In a release, the company reported an average lithium recovery of 96.1% from the continuous incoming brine flow in July and August, utilizing a DLE process developed with Koch Technology Solutions.

The company stated in the same report that, during the same time period, over 99% of the contaminants sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium were rejected and over 95% of boron was rejected from the lithium chloride solution.

The resulting solution, containing over 10,000 mg per liter of lithium according to the release, “has been shipped off-site and has been successfully converted to both battery quality lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.”

“Over three and a half years of rigorous testing and integrated process improvements have provided us with unrivalled knowledge of lithium extraction from Smackover brines. We selected Smackover brines for their existing commercial operations, exceptional lithium grade, and straightforward geochemical nature, distinguishing them as North America’s premier lithium brine resource and comparable to those in Chile and Argentina,” said Standard Lithium president Dr. Andy Robinson.

Exxon’s decision to invest $100 million in the region and the company’s statement that it will be extracting the lithium with DLE injects new optimism into the future of lithium extraction in south Arkansas.

Umberson is optimistic about the technology, particularly as more and more money is concentrated on making it work at commercial scale.

Umberson — even speaking before SLI’s Nov. 20 announcement — considers SLI’s technology “proven… at a smaller scale” attheir operation at LANXESS’ south plant in El Dorado and thinks that DLE’s effectiveness will scale with time and, most importantly, increased funding.

“There hasn’t been enough money thrown at DLE yet, to optimize it. It’s all very new. The world was so focused on extracting it from evaporation ponds or mining and never thought DLE would work,” he said, adding that the tech is likely most effective in regions like the Smackover Formation with higher lithium concentrations.

Another potential question mark is the market and lithium’s place in it.

The demand for lithium is currently in flux. According to a Nov. 13 Wall Street Journal article, lithium prices “have plunged more than 60% through early October” and sales of pure EVs have slowed.

EVs are, of course, not the only consideration when it comes to lithium and demand for lithium, as hybrid vehicles along with numerous other products utilize the batteries.

According to the WSJ, Exxon is working from expectations that “light-duty vehicle demand for internal combustion fuels will peak around 2025” and drop to early-2000s levels by 2050. The company projects also that EV sales globally will climb nearly 25% and that lithium demand will quadruple by 2030.

Umberson concluded that education about the growing industry for stakeholders and the public at large will be crucial in making sure south Arkansas and the state as a whole benefit from it.

“Arkansas has a unique situation and we should look at the potential of what is there and not get misinformed by problems of politics or bias,” Umberson said.

The Nature Conservancy’s 2022 report concurs.

“Lithium extraction in the U.S. involves emerging technologies and novel processes. Expertise on these topics is limited in government and industry, and in communities. The technologies and impacts involved in lithium extraction must be communicated to communities in a manner that is understandable,” the report states.