Standard Lithium announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with LANXESS and its affiliate to test and prove the commercial viability of the extraction of lithium from brine Wednesday.
The El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce held a chamber board of directors meeting Wednesday, where they discussed project updates, including the Standard Lithium deal.
According to a press release, LANXESS’ land operations in Southern Arkansas encompasses more than 150,000 acres, 10,000 brine leases and surface agreements and 250 miles of pipeline.
LANXESS extracts the brine from their wells located throughout the area, and the brine is transported to the three Arkansas plants through a network of pipelines. The three bromine extraction plants, which are located in Union County, currently employ approximately 500 people, who process and re-inject several hundred thousand barrels of brine each day.
“Standard Lithium has developed proprietary processes related to the extraction of high purity lithium directly from brines, including tail brine,” the news release states. “Additionally, the company has secured the rights to conduct exploration, production and lithium extraction activities on roughly 30,000 acres of brine leases located elsewhere in the Smackover Formation in Southwest Arkansas.”
Standard Lithium’s President and COO Andy Robinson said in the news release that the project provides the “perfect opportunity to test modern brine processing technology on an existing lithium brine stream.”
Robinson added that he hopes to move as quickly as possible towards deploying the pilot plant.
The memorandum of understanding communicates that both companies have agreed to cooperate in a phased process towards developing commercial opportunities, “related to the production, marketing and sale of battery grade lithium products extracted from tail brine and brine produced from the Smackover Formation.”
Standard Lithium has paid an initial $3 million reservation fee to LANXESS to secure access to the tail brine, with additional fees and obligations in the future, subject to certain conditions.
The memorandum of understanding sets out the basis of what will become a definitive agreement and is binding until the execution of a more comprehensive agreement is completed.
Standard Lithium is currently engaged in the exploration and resource development of the California Lithium Projects, located in the Mojave region of San Bernardino County, California.
“We are delighted to be entering into a cooperation with LANXESS, a highly-respected world leader in the specialty chemical sector,” said Robert Mintak, CEO of Standard Lithium. “Given the scale of the existing infrastructure and potential resource, the mitigation of project execution risks and acceleration of the Smackover project development timelines, this (memorandum of understanding) represents an important step for Standard Lithium.”
In other business, Scott Street, CEO of Medical Center of South Arkansas and a current chamber board member, talked about MCSA and Arkansas Heart Hospital’s alliance, which reflects the commitment to heart health the hospital has.
Street also discussed the multi-million dollar renovation project the hospital is doing to update and transition existing space into new clinics and provide new service lines.
“We’ve been granted several million to upgrade and bring (the hospital) to a more modern look in a lot of different areas,” Street said.
Referring to physician recruitment, Street said there is not a specialty they are not recruiting for. He also said that they are weeks away from affiliating an alliance with Arkansas Children’s, which will require the use of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at MCSA.
“We’re trying to help the economy by bringing some of these things to El Dorado,” he said.
Jessie Foster, vocational rehab counselor of the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division of Services for the Blind, spoke to the board members about what the program provides.
She educated the board members on vocational rehabilitation, which is to help prepare consumers for employment through training and/or other job-related services. Eligibility is based on visual impairment, which is a progressive visual condition with a visual acuity of 20/50 in the best eye after correction.
The program helps prepare consumers for employment through training and/or other job-related services. The services are available to anyone who is not currently employed, are seeking to advance in a career or are in danger of losing a job due to vision loss.
Kaitlyn Rigdon can be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected].