On Oct. 21, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) announced that there may be between five million and 19 million tons of lithium deposits in the “Smackover Formation” in southern Arkansas.
The USGS report said that if the lithium is “commercially recoverable,” this amount would meet the projected global demand for lithium in 2030. When considering the need for lithium, to produce batteries for electric vehicles, the USGS says this amount “would meet projected 2030 world demand for lithium in car batteries nine times over.”
The Arkansas Times reported that the USGS, in collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment’s Office of the State Geologist, used a “novel methodology” to determine just how much lithium is in the new find.
They used a method “involving water testing and artificial intelligence to determine the amount of lithium that could possibly be extracted from brine reservoirs in a geological region known as the Smackover Formation,” the Arkansas Times reported.
The Smackover Formation covers south Arkansas, and parts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
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USGS report
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The USGS report says that there is enough lithium in the Smackover Formation to “replace U.S. imports of lithium and more.”
However, they cautioned that the figures they are presenting are only “estimates” and are an “in-place assessment.”
An “in-place assessment” in geology is a direct examination of rock formations or soil at their original location, rather than studying samples removed from the site. This type of assessment helps geologists understand a site’s physical and chemical characteristics within its natural context.
Katherine Knierim, a hydrologist and the study’s principal researcher, also warned that these estimates are based on newer, though not necessarily foolproof methods of extracting lithium from brines.
Researchers used a predictive model produced using artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning, to obtain the estimates.
Samples from the region were analyzed by the USGS Brine Research Instrumentation and Experimental lab in Reston, Virginia, “and then compared with data from historic samples within the USGS Produced Waters Database of water from hydrocarbon production,” the report reads.
“The machine learning model was then used to combine lithium concentrations in brines with geological data to create maps that predict total lithium concentrations across the region, even areas lacking lithium samples.”
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Extraction hurdles
According to the Arkansas Times, there are at least five companies vying to start a lithium extraction business in southern Arkansas, including Exxonmobil and Standard Lithium, however these companies have been “locked in an ongoing dispute with landowners over how much the landowners will be paid for mineral rights.”
In mid-October, during a conference in Little Rock, a representative from Standard Lithium said that if landowners demand too high of a royalty rate, the company would be unable to compete in the global market and the business would never get off the ground.
Currently the global market is dominated primarily by China, Chile, and Australia.
Lithium is a critical component in modern battery technology, especially for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which power most of today’s portable electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage systems.
Due to its high density and light weight, lithium enables batteries to hold a substantial charge while remaining compact.
As countries push for more and more renewable energy sources, the demand for lithium is expected to continue to grow into the foreseeable future.
Regarding the suspected deposits in the Smackover Formation, the president of ExxonMobil’s Low Carbon Solutions business, Dan Ammann, told the New York Times, “We know we have an attractive resource. We’re working on understanding that cost equation, understanding the supply-and-demand picture.”
