Simmons Funds SPP; Lithium News Abounds

Southwest Power Pool, the nonprofit power transmission overseer based in Little Rock, has announced $150 million in financing to launch second-phase development of Markets+.

That’s the grid manager’s name for a day-ahead and real-time power market expected to start operations in 2027.

Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff is providing the funding for full market implementation, SPP said on June 30.

Carrie Simpson, SPP’s vice president of markets, described the financing as a “pivotal step forward” for the new initiative. The program’s goal is to spread the benefits of SPP’s organized wholesale electricity markets to the Western Interconnection.

Eight power entities have signed onto a funding agreement framework. Those include Arizona Public Service, the Bonneville Power Administration, Puget Sound Energy and Tucson Electric Power.

Markets+ will give them a centralized real-time and day-ahead power market with greater ability to manage intermittent power resources like solar and wind. Optimized generation and transmission should also cut wholesale power prices, SPP says.

Jim Gonzalez, SPP’s senior director of seams and Western services, said that with key regional partners on board, “we’re ready to begin the next phase of development.”

Just weeks after Chevron U.S.A. Inc. bought a big lithium stake in southwest Arkansas and east Texas, Energy Exploration Technologies of Austin, Texas, announced June 9 that it had bought Pantera Lithium’s Smackover Lithium project for $26.1 million.

Pantera, based in Australia, is giving up 35,000 acres of lithium mineral leases in the crowded competition to build a commercial lithium extraction industry in south Arkansas.

EnergyX, as the privately held Austin company is widely known, has backing from General Motors, South Korean steelmaker POSCO and the Italian energy multinational Eni.

EnergyX plans to build a $700 million commercial-grade lithium plant in the Smackover Formation region.

The Pantera deal, which includes $3.9 million in cash and some $22 million in EnergyX stock, is expected to close in October.

Chevron U.S.A., a subsidiary of petroleum giant Chevron Corp. of Houston, acquired about 100,000 acres of its stake in June from TerraVolta Resources of Houston, and the other 25,000 acres from East Texas Natural Resources LLC of Houston. Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed.

Standard Lithium of Vancouver, British Columbia, set off the Arkansas lithium rush in 2018, building a test facility to use direct lithium extraction methods on brine already stripped of bromine by Albemarle Corp. Exxon Mobil joined the chase in early 2023, acquiring the rights to 120,000 Arkansas acres and buying Saltwerx, a specialist in repurposing old oil wells for brine extraction.

EnergyX founder and CEO Teague Egan said in a statement that the Pantera acquisition was a “transformative” milestone.

“With 35,000 acres positioned adjacent to Exxon, Chevron, and Standard Lithium in the Smackover, the race is on to see who will be the first to produce commercial battery grade lithium,” Egan said.

Meanwhile, Standard announced on Tuesday that a sampling from a new test well near Lewisville produced the highest lithium concentration rate yet in its South West Arkansas Project.

Subsidiary Smackover Lithium, Standard’s joint venture with Equinor of Norway, reported that it completed the well, known as Lester, in the spring.

An independent lab found that brine samples “demonstrated significantly higher than expected” concentrations.

Standard President and COO Andy Robinson said that with fieldwork complete, front-end engineering design and definitive feasibility studies are on track for Smackover Lithium’s $1.5 billion planned direct extraction facility south of Lewisville. A final investment decision is expected this year.