Standard Lithium Ltd. (“Standard Lithium” or the “Company”) (TSXV: SLI) (NYSE American: SLI) (FRA: S5L), a leading near-commercial lithium company, announced that, as part of the resource definition work at its South West Arkansas Project (see news release dated 20th March 2023) it has sampled, to the best of its knowledge, the highest confirmed lithium grade brine in Arkansas, with a grade of 581 mg/L. These sampling data follow similar high-grade results from the Company’s resources in Texas.
Dr. Andy Robinson, President and COO of Standard Lithium commented, “We continue to be very pleasantly surprised by the lithium grades sampled from our projects in Arkansas and Texas. We previously developed the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for the SWA Project using a conservative assessment of the lithium brine grades across the project area. Using that conservative resource basis still yielded a PEA with very attractive project economics (after-tax NPV US$1.97 Billion and IRR of 32% at 8% discount rate; see news release dated 12th October 2021). This recent infill drilling work to further define the lithium resource has resulted in a marked upside to the in-situ lithium grade. In our experience, the grade of lithium in brine used for Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) has a meaningful impact on both capital expenditures and operating costs in connection with the extraction process, so a higher grade typically results in lower overall costs and should have a positive effect on project economics in the forthcoming Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS). We are delighted that sampling from this recent well has led us to find lithium brine with the highest confirmed grade in Arkansas, and we look forward to incorporating these into the forthcoming PFS.”
Analysis and Testing Details
The lithium brine samples were taken from a pre-existing well located in the central-eastern portion of Standard’s project area. This well (the Beulah-Taylor #1) was first drilled in July 1982 and subsequently decommissioned in August 1982. Standard Lithium’s drilling team commenced drilling on 21st February, 2023 and deepened the hole to a total measured depth of 8,940 ft on 8th March, 2023.
Brines from the Beulah-Taylor#1 were sampled using a workover rig from several different zones in the Smackover Formation during March and early April. All brine samples were analyzed at multiple analytical laboratories (both third-party and also at the Company’s analytical facility in El Dorado, Arkansas) in order to confirm sample quality and maintain QA/QC procedures. The Standard Lithium data provided in Table 1 below were all analyzed, performed, and reported by Western Environmental Testing Laboratories of Sparks NV, a third-party, accredited testing facility.
