Consider that Exxon spent US$100M to acquire acreage (~120K acres in Smackover brinefield Arkansas - same field I believe as Standard Lithium will source its Lithium brines) from Galvanic Energy. Imperial Oil is Exxon subsidiary in Canada and is equity holder & partner with E3 Lithium in Alberta Leduc formation - where they used to produce oil so Imperial knows that field very well. Exxon has another subsidiaty - Saltwerx - which JVed with Tetra tech to also develop another bromine/lithium brine field in Arkansas (Tetra also working with Standar Lithium). And overall of this, there is Exxon talking with International Battery Metals - Dr John Burba's company - to license their DLE technology. So it would appear that Exxon is "greasing" an entry into Lithium via a well based extraction and chemical processing strategy ... something they know well. The capital they have invested so far is "petty cash" - they have US$30B of cash on hand.
And that's why it is inevitable that O&G makes (equity) investments into Lithium companies ... but which ones??? Just can't see them going to hardrock mining (bit then back a few decades they were into coal mining). They are likely to stick with what they know ... and wells to produce a brine and chemically process that ... that is something they are comfortable with. Figure that DLE is what they are after ... Exxon leading by the look of it.
Royal Dutch Shell cash on hand ~US$45B Equinor Cash on Hand ~ US$42B BP Cash on Hand ~US$30B Total Cash on Hand ~US$25B Eni Cash on Hand ~ US$22B Chevron Cash on Hand ~US$9B
So I hope that VUL can stay independent for long enough ... VULSORB IP might be the most valuable thing we own ... plus that resource we have license too ... O&G might just pay up big time (much more so than auto OEMs)
Mind you auto OEMs are not poor either ... Toyota cash on hand ~US$74B Stellantis cash on hand ~US$71B VW cash on hand ~US$69B Ford cash on hand ~US$43B GM cash on hand ~US$33B Mercedes cash on hand ~US$16B
So yeah, if there is another group wanting to do the geothermal power thing and we can "buy" brine (so Opex - no CapEx to get it) ... count me in.
VUL Price at posting:
$2.76 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)