I joined the Union Oil Company of California fresh out of graduate school, back in 1980. After one month as a refinery pilot plant engineer trainee, I was assigned to the Imperial Valley, which is near the California / Mexico border, to be a field engineer in the company’s geothermal division. The two geothermal fields at the time were at the Salton Sea and in the desolate town of Brawley.
My role was to support a research project testing methods to control scale depositing in steam plant surface lines from the very high-salinity, complex geothermal brine produced from wells, along with evaluating methods for isolating salts of precious metals, such as gold and silver. Among the many ions in the brine, we knew there was also lithium present, but no one really cared about lithium then.
But now, the Imperial Valley is touting itself as Lithium Valley. According to a 2023 study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, it is estimated that the valley is “sitting on an estimated 3,400 kilotons of lithium!”
The importance of lithium. Lithium and its compounds have many important uses, such as its inclusion with aluminum, copper, manganese and cadmium to manufacture high-performance alloys for aircraft, its use in the manufacture of special high-strength glasses and ceramics, and its presence in drugs to treat depression. There are many other industrial, chemical, and material applications of lithium metal and lithium compounds.
Of course, we now think of lithium mostly for its use in high-power rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles. It is the use in batteries for electric cars that has really put lithium on the map with the general public. Lithium is lightweight and has a large negative electrochemical potential, thus making it especially useful in battery technology.
The largest producers of lithium today are Australia, Chile and China. Argentina is also a significant producer. The majority of the world’s untapped lithium reserves is in Chile. Mines in Australia produce more than half of the global supply of lithium. China produces over half of the world’s batteries. The U.S. hardly registers as a lithium player today, producing less than 1% of the global supply.
Because of the expected demand for electric vehicles in the coming years, a shortfall of lithium supply is anticipated. This may be in a couple of years, or by the end of the decade, or perhaps even further out. In any case, lithium supply to meet expectations (or hopes) is surely to tighten, based on current methods of lithium production, which is primarily from mining operations. There are presently only about 100 lithium mines in the world, after all.
Lithium from wells. Just this month (December 2023), the Direct Lithium Extraction Summit was held in Orange County, California, with participants from a wide variety of industry, but especially including major oil and gas operators, such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron, among others. One of the key topics included in the agenda for the summit was “Exploring lithium-rich brine resources in continental, geothermal, and oil & gas reservoirs.”
Just last month (November 2023), ExxonMobil announced that it is drilling a well in southern Arkansas, into the Smackover dolomite formation, to produce lithium. The Smackover typically produces very high-salinity brines containing exceptionally high levels of lithium (~500 mg/liter) in the form of lithium salts.
Earlier this year, ExxonMobil acquired the rights to about 120,000 acres of the Smackover for this purpose. From Fortune magazine: “Exxon said it will use conventional oil and gas drilling methods to access lithium-rich saltwater from reservoirs about 10,000 feet (3.05 kilometers) underground. It will then use ‘direct lithium extraction’ technology to separate lithium from the saltwater, and convert saltwater onsite to battery-grade material. The remaining saltwater will be re-injected into the underground reservoirs. Exxon Mobil said its extraction process produces fewer carbon emissions than hard rock mining and requires significantly less land.”
ExxonMobil expects to begin production of lithium for electric vehicles by 2027 and to be able to produce enough lithium to supply the needs for more than one million electric vehicles.
But potential lithium production in North America goes well beyond ExxonMobil and the Smackover formation in southern Arkansas. The exploitation of lithium from existing oil and gas fields, including from abandoned wells in the U.S. and Canada, for example, may be a great boon to currently non-existent North American markets for obtaining lithium, and can prevent the possibility of monopolization by certain international concerns, given the currently isolated lithium mining locations and where they exist.
Use of abandoned oil and gas wells, use of the wastewater from existing oil and gas wells, and use of geothermal wells, such as those in the Imperial Valley of California, which produce high-salinity, high-temperature brines, can reduce the cost of lithium production and recovery. This will occur, as lithium extraction and separation technologies advance.
Environmental benefit of producing lithium from wells. The vast majority of the world’s lithium is mined from salt flats and hard rock, using expensive and involved processes and huge amounts of fresh water. Thus, the so-called move to clean energy with electric vehicles comes with unfavorable environmental impact. Increasing demand for electric vehicles, and thus lithium, will only increase mining and the inherent environmental damage caused by such operations. Use of existing oil, gas and geothermal wells, abandoned wells, wastewater from oil and gas wells, and even new wells drilled just for high-salinity / high-lithium brines, will provide much more environmentally favorable and lower-cost sources of lithium.
While the Imperial Valley in California is transitioning to the Lithium Valley, so may the oil and gas industry transition to the oil, gas and lithium industry. Maybe that’s too wordy to catch on, but surely it will be the oil and gas, and geothermal industries, those that have drilled, and will drill, and produce brine from wells, that will accelerate the transition to electric vehicles and their proliferation that is generally assumed.
It will take time, but in conjunction with various start-up companies that are developing and advancing commercial methods for direct lithium extraction from well-produced brines, a beneficial shift away from mining to less environmentally disruptive activity and greater independence in lithium production may be anticipated. WO
LEONARD KALFAYAN is recently retired, following over 13 years with Hess as Principal Advisor, Production Enhancement, and Head of Production Engineering and Stimulation. He has 42 years of global experience in the oil, gas and geothermal industries, primarily in production enhancement, new technology development and implementation, technical support and business development. Prior to joining Hess in 2009, he worked for Unocal, BJ Services, and as an industry consultant. He is a past SPE Distinguished Lecturer and SPE Distinguished Member. He has authored over 30 SPE and other journal publications and holds 13 U.S. patents. He also is the author of the book Production Enhancement with Acid Stimulation (in its 2nd edition), co-author of the book The Energy Imperative, and co-editor of the SPE Monograph: Acid Stimulation.