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Lithium is absolutely essential to “the Electric Vehicle Revolution.” Like it or not, the EV paradigm shift is coming.
The problem is not about finding lithium. It is all over the world. Neither is the problem is not mining for lithium. The problem is extracting it from all the other stuff that is keeping manufacturers from getting to the good stuff. I have found a Canadian company that might provide some help in this department.
It is called Standard Lithium (OTC:STLHF) (TSXV:SLL). This company takes a slightly different approach than hard-rock hammering or patiently extracting from brine over a period of weeks or months.
Indeed, Standard is not a miner at all. Their approach is to work with companies already producing what, for those companies, would be their primary source of income, be it copper, iron, nickel or whatever. These are usually very big companies that it might be just one degree above wanting to be bothered to set up lithium processing. What makes them valuable partners for Standard Lithium is that their mines are already fully permitted and they already have the infrastructure developed to do their big-job mining.
What may only be a distraction for them, however, could be a bonanza for a smaller company willing to partner with them (read: pay them for the privilege of sorting through their slag/trash/waste) and thereby provide an additional source of lithium for the world—without buying or leasing land, getting permits, greasing palms in some nations, leasing equipment, hiring lots of staff, etc.
Standard Lithium has passed the hypothesis and lab testing phase. They now have a pilot program in place, working with a German company in southwest Arkansas. The German company is the 158-year-old giant specialty chemicals company Lanxess (OTC:LNXSF), headquartered in Koln (Cologne) Germany. The company produces lubricants and other additives, fire retardants, bromine and bromine derivatives for various applications for rubber, plastic, and paint industries, water treatment membranes, plastics, glass fibers, fiber composites and more—but not lithium.
Laxness has allowed STLHF to set up its pilot by operating on about 150,000 acres of brine leases in this area. If it is successful, there are all kinds of other properties owned by other big chemical and mining firms where Standard Lithium could just pick up its equipment and transport raw lithium chloride to its already-in-operation conversion plant in Richmond, British Columbia.
With new leased or owned equipment, it could even scale up to where the company could be extracting lithium from a number of the hundreds of brine ponds in existence today—just as we are likely to need more of the stuff.
Standard Lithium said, in the 4th quarter of 2020, that 20,000 liters of lithium chloride had already been shipped and conversion to lithium carbonate successfully accomplished using conventional batch process and the company’s proprietary SiFT process. It calls this first step in the innovative chain the Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) Demonstration Plant.
The Demonstration Plant uses the Company’s proprietary “LiSTR” technology, which is designed to continuously process an input tail brine flow of 50 gallons per minute from the Lanxess South Plant. Upon conversion to lithium carbonate, that would be equivalent to an annual production of between 100-150 tons per annum of lithium carbonate.
In addition, STLHF’s industrial-scale lithium carbonate crystallization pilot plant in Richmond has been operating successfully for several months using a lithium chloride solution that was produced last year by the company’s mini-pilot DLE plant in Arkansas. According to the company:
“The SiFT plant has been making high-purity lithium carbonate crystals from this lithium chloride and is now ready to receive the large volume of product coming from Standard Lithium’s continuously-operating plant in Arkansas for final conversion to battery-quality lithium carbonate.”
As Dr. Andy Robinson, president and COO of Standard Lithium noted, “We’ve been successfully operating our first-of-its-kind industrial scale DLE plant in Arkansas, and we’ve been continuously making lithium chloride product for months…This is a very exciting time for us because we’re approaching the point where we can demonstrate the continuous extraction of lithium from Smackover brine and conversion into battery-quality material.”
If successful, STLHF’s scalable, environmentally friendly process eliminates the use of evaporation ponds like those in Chile and Argentina which, according to the company’s statements, “reduces processing time from months to hours and greatly increases the effective recovery of lithium.” [Emphasis mine.]
STLHF is also actively pursuing the resource development of approximately 45,000 acres of mineral leases located in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, and is always looking for other possible sites.
Purchase of Standard Lithium shares continues my investment theme of seeking innovative ways to play the transition to electric vehicles and energy storage via batteries of all every size.
TWO Disclosures: (1) I consider the purchase of smaller companies like this to be speculative in nature/ Do your due diligence! (2) Unless you are a client of Stanford Wealth Management, I do not know your personal financial situation. Therefore, I offer my opinions above for your due diligence and not as advice to buy or sell specific securities.