LEWISVILLE, Ark. — Three years after initial tests hoping to tap into vast quantities of lithium, the chemical that makes rechargeable batteries work, two companies say they are ready to begin commercial production.
The declarations from Standard Lithium, a startup based in Vancouver, B.C., and oil and gas giant ExxonMobil, figure to touch off a "gold rush" into southern Arkansas.
"We're now at the point where that energy transition is very real, and it's happening across the globe," Standard Lithium Chief Operating Officer Andy Robinson said. "We're hoping to be producing lithium commercially in southern Arkansas in early 2026."
Standard Lithium staked the first claim in Arkansas to extract the chemical needed to power all the rechargeable batteries that could one day break our dependence on oil and gas.
Since 2020, Robinson has overseen a demonstration project testing an extraction process that taps into the abundant amounts of brine, a salty liquid found two miles underground in what's called the Smackover Foundation. It is run through a small-scale facility in El Dorado.
"We've learned how to take the brines from the Smackover, process them to get the lithium out directly from them, put that brine back in the ground again once the lithium has been extracted," Robinson said. "We've learned what we need to learn to now move to the commercial steps."
Scaling up that pilot program is essential because if it doesn't work, the chances of getting all that lithium out from down there practically disappear.
Production in leading foreign countries like Chile and Australia usually gets the lithium by building giant evaporation ponds in the middle of deserts.
Standard Lithium plans to build a processing plant in Lafayette County on 118 acres of mostly timberland west of Magnolia. It's close to a rail link and Arkansas Highway 29.
An evaporation pond would be 120 times bigger at about 30,000 acres.
Nowhere in the Smackover formation is that kind of space or the appetite for that much environmental destruction.
"We're genuinely, really proud that we are taking this very modern approach and having such a light footprint on the planet," Robinson said.
While ExxonMobil is best known for its massive drilling operations in all corners of the globe, the Texas-based company signaled that extracting lithium from brine in this corner of Arkansas will work.
Company representatives bellied up to the lithium bar with an announcement alongside Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in mid-November.
"This is something that can have tremendous long-term economic impact," Sanders said.
"We're aiming to be a leading supplier of lithium by 2030," said Patrick Howarth, a global business manager for low-carbon solutions. "It's probably a little bit too early to say exactly how or how big it could be, but we feel that we can contribute to providing lithium for at least a million [electric vehicles] by 2030."
ExxonMobil expects its first drilling operations to begin this year. Standard Lithium will seek commercial approval from the state in early December and figure to take advantage of its three-year headstart. That meeting will also determine the royalties the company will pay to landowners.
Robinson and Howarth said there's still a long way to go to a booming, thriving lithium industry in Arkansas, but to them and their investors, that potential energy is there.
"The world and North America really need lithium urgently," Howarth said. "We think that these critical resources that we were hoping to develop in southwest Arkansas, near Magnolia, can be a big part of that story."