ASN should not only worry about the Oil Majors getting involved...

ASN should not only worry about the Oil Majors getting involved with the brine lithium business but also smaller oil companies which can also pose a competitive threat. For instance, Volt Lithium, a Canadian micro cap ($24M marketcap), is testing in Alberta Canada a Lithium extraction DLE technology that may allow Oil companies around the world to expand the value of their petrobrine lithium infused reservoirs.

Volt lithium not only plans to extract lithium directly from the surface-pumped petrobrine but also enjoy competitive operating expenses and lower initial capital expenditures by piggy backing on existing oil extraction infrastructure and existing regulatory permits.
How it works? Specifically, the partner/licensee oil company pumps fluid to surface and takes the oil using Volt's water management approach. Then, using the brine leftover after the water management oil extraction Volt's technology removes any contaminants that interfere with the DLE process resulting in lithium chloride.The last step is the upgrading. Volt recently announced a pilot project results using available commercial scale equipment which demonstrated lithium recoveries of 90% at Li. concentrations as low as 34 mg/L.