Ann: Quarterly Activities/Appendix 5B Cash Flow Report, page-19

Reality Check: DLE Technology Has Been Around For 50 Years And Profitability Remains Elusive

SLI is hardly the first player in lithium to stumble upon DLE. As early as the 1970s, top industrial companies like DOW were filing patents around direct-lithium-extraction. Although DLE never reached commercial scale in the 1970s, that hasn’t stopped dozens of well-capitalized companies from attempting to figure it out in recent years.

As one example, Albemarle, is a $27B market-cap lithium powerhouse and one of the largest lithium producers in the world. Back in 2011, Albemarle announced it wouldproduce lithium via a DLE process in Arkansas – close to Standard Lithium´s current pilot plant — and aimed to be in commercial production by 2013.^[1]

But Albemarle shelved that project and has struggled to make DLE economical, with lithium division President Eric Norris saying in August 2021:

“It’s more capital intensiveandactually consumes a lot more water and energy…” – Eric Norris, President of Lithium Division, Albemarle Corporation

U.S.-headquartered Livent, a major globallithium producer, claims it is the “only lithium producer in the world with a successful, multi-decade track record of using a DLE technology process on a commercial scale.” It purchased Dow DLE patents in the 1990s and is uses DLE at its high lithium content deposits in Argentina; not in much lower-content deposits in the U.S. [Pg. 21]

Others have found success elusive, and not for lack of trying. JadeCove Partners, consultants to the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), says it is tracking 73 DLE projects under development globally, including in the U.S.

Dr. John Burba worked with Dow and FMC on the development of DLE since the 1980s. And with more than 70 patents to his name, he´s sometimes dubbed the “godfather of lithium”. In a presentation for his DLE start-up International Battery Metals, Burba writes:

“Over the last decade, there has been a lot of hype and excitement over new and novel technologies that will solve this problem. Unfortunately, most of these technologies will never be commercial. Designing a process to selectively extract lithium from complex saturated brines is stunningly difficult. Designing one that can be profitable is much more difficult. Most of these projects are either reworks of old ideas that were tried and failed in the 1980s or new concepts with marginal operational bases. What works in the lab does not always work at scale.”

Ed Andersen, President of Tru Group, an engineering consultancy with expertise in lithium extraction, estimates there are currently over 150 lithium brine projects in the U.S., but he says most are doomed to failure:

“There has been only one successful new plant start-up since the lithium push began in 2009 and a number of complete failures. There have been about 100 attempts by mining juniors to get into lithium production – but nearly all have not met promised targets and most demonstrated minimal progress.”

As recently as December 2021, he said:

“We don’t have a direct extraction technology that, to my mind, is anywhere near commercialization.”

Although many have failed before, Standard Lithium has led the market to believe it will be the company to figure out profitable DLE.

CEO Robert Mintak claimed on CNBC that Standard Lithium has the “technology to unlock” the “globally significant” lithium brine resource in Arkansas.

https://hindenburgresearch.com/standard-lithium/