Standard Lithium, Tetra Announce Concrete Plans For Lithium Plants

Plans for commercial lithium production in south Arkansas took more concrete shape in late April and early May.

Standard Lithium Ltd. of Vancouver, British Columbia, announced a new partnership to speed construction of a lithium plant on 118 acres 6 miles south of Lewisville.

In another development, three executives of Tetra Technologies Inc. of The Woodlands, Texas, told a gathering at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Lewisville on April 25 that it will start building a bromine and lithium plant nearby this summer.

Equinor, a major Norwegian energy company, announced May 7 plans to spend up to $160 million for a 45% stake in Standard Lithium’s southwest Arkansas project and drilling operations across the state line in east Texas. Standard already had backing from Koch Industries and a partnership for an El Dorado lithium plant with bromine producer Lanxess. Now it will get a $30 million cash payment upfront from Equinor, and $40 million more, to start work on the Lafayette County lithium extraction facility.

The $1.3 billion site is expected to produce up to 35,000 tons of battery-grade lithium products per year. Standard is also working to grow its Lanxess-tied lithium extraction test plant in El Dorado into a commercial operation that could produce 5,000 tons or more each year.

Standard President and COO Andy Robinson said Equinor’s involvement “will be fundamental to the continued de-risking and execution” of its projects. “We believe we have aligned with the right partner to take SLI and the lithium industry in Arkansas and Texas to the next level.”

SLI is Standard Lithium’s symbol on the NYSE American Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange.

The foundation of the nascent lithium industry is the same resource that has fed south Arkansas’ bromine industry for a half-century: the underground brines of the Smackover geological formation, which runs along the state’s southern border.

Long History

The region boomed with oil wells a century ago, when the brine was simply a byproduct of drilling. But scientists soon found that the water was rich in bromine, a powerful flame retardant. In offshore drilling, rigs inject bromine-based “completion fluids” into oil and gas wells to prevent powerful underground pressures from blowing them out.

Tetra manufactures these bromine fluids at a West Memphis manufacturing plant built in 1992. The company has used Arkansas bromine in its fluids since the early 1980s. Later in that decade, it acquired 40,000 acres of brine rights from Dow Chemical to ensure a longtime supply.

Tetra officials Tim Moeller, Alicia Boston and Elijio Serrano detailed the company’s plans in the courthouse update last month, mentioning their small-town roots in Texas. They assured Arkansans that their bromine and lithium plant will stress safety and protect the environment, adding that it will create 60 to 80 permanent jobs.

“We have reached an inflection point in our company’s history,” said Serrano, Tetra’s chief financial officer. “The volumes of bromine that we need for the oil and gas segment and other opportunities, we don’t have access to. So we made that decision here that we’re going to start turning brine into bromine.

“By the way, where we get the bromine out there’s also lithium.” Moeller, Tetra’s senior vice president of global supply chain and chemicals, outlined the company’s history in Arkansas. It operated an industrial chemical plant in El Dorado from 2009 to 2020, and is now looking to repurpose that idle facility. In September, the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission unanimously approved Tetra’s 6,138-acre Evergreen Brine Unit, the first new state-approved brine project in 28 years.That will be a partnership with Saltwerx, a wholly owned subsidiary of Exxon Mobil.

The brine plant will benefit from existing equipment the company acquired from Dow Chemical long ago, and construction is expected to take about two years, Serrano said.

Tetra has a “significant global presence,” he said, with 1,500 employees and a market capitalization of $525 million. It is a world leader in bromine and calcium chloride production.

Zinc Bromide

A new market for bromine in zinc battery production spurred Tetra’s quest for more of the element. In January, Tetra expanded its partnership with Eos Energy Enterprises Inc. of Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, providing zinc bromide electrolytes for making long-duration batteries. Eos said Tetra will supply a minimum of 75% of the total electrolyte products it needs to build American-made Eos Z3 “long duration energy storage cubes.”

“We talked about the Eos battery, a flow-cell battery,” Moeller said, noting that a zinc battery charge lasts longer than a lithium battery charge. “When you get into drills and electric vehicles … you need that eight- to 12-hour duration. That’s what this battery does. It has a high-purity zinc bromide electrolyte as part of it, and we are one of only two companies in the world that produces that commercially today.”

Eos said in a January news release that it has worked with Tetra since 2021 to perfect the electrolyte, which it called “one of the largest cost components of the Eos Z3 cube.”

At the time, Tetra President and CEO Brady Murphy said the four-year partnership extension with Eos “dovetails nicely with our bromine production plans, and we are excited to be part of Eos’s future plans and Inflation Reduction Act objectives.”

Boston, Tetra’s general counsel and chief compliance officer, said Tetra is seeking out Arkansas vendors. “We have actually updated our website so that you could go in and let us know that you are available,” she said. “There should be a way for you to note that you’re an Arkansas vendor, and that will let us know that you’re in the local community.”

She said Tetra is looking to create employment opportunities, and working with local schools to train residents for those jobs. “Our goal at the community college level is to create programs for long-term career opportunities so that people will stay in the local area. We’re looking at ways to get involved at the high school level.”

The company is looking at scholarships, internships and skills development programs, Boston said. “We are excited to embark on this journey with everyone. We are accessible. We want to make sure that we’re good partners with the community.”