August 7, 2024 – The regular meeting of the Sulphur Springs City Council saw the council approving a “brine lease” with a company to extract valuable lithium from the “Thermo Mine” property which is now owned by the City of Sulphur Springs. The move was touted by one council member on social media as he suggested that citizens should do their own due diligence if they are approached for a similar lease. The following post appeared on Place One City Council Member Jay Julian’s personal Facebook page.
“Dear Citizens of Sulphur Springs,
I’m excited to share some significant news from our recent city council meeting on Tuesday night. We have officially approved a brine lease for mineral royalty owned by the City of Sulphur Springs, located at the “Thermo” property. This marks a major step forward in tapping into the lithium resources within the Smackover Formation, which runs through northeast Texas and contains some of the highest concentrations of lithium in the country.
The city council has authorized our city manager to execute a brine lease with Texas Lone Star Brine, LLC. This company will utilize Standard Lithium, LTD’s proprietary Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) process to extract the lithium from the brine. The DLE process is impressive, as it processes the brine in small tanks to remove the lithium, and then pumps the leftover brine water back into the formation, ensuring minimal environmental impact.
As part of my due diligence, I personally visited and toured Standard Lithium, LTD’s DLE facility in El Dorado, Arkansas. I found their process to be exceptionally clean and efficient. The tour included a Q&A session that addressed all my concerns and boosted my confidence in their technology. Moreover, Standard Lithium has substantial backing from major investors, including a $100 million investment from Koch Strategic Platforms.
Currently, several companies are competing for mineral royalties for brine. Among them are Texas Lone Star Brine, LLC (associated with Standard Lithium, LTD.), Black Mountain Lithium, and Bright Star Exploration, LLC. I’ve also heard that a fourth company might be entering the game soon.
While I won’t advise anyone on what they should do, I want to emphasize that a lot of due diligence was done at the city council level. We chose Texas Lone Star Brine, LLC because we believe Standard Lithium, LTD is at the forefront of this new lithium boom, with the best technology and the investment backing to see it through to production.
If you have been approached by a landman attempting to lease your minerals, I strongly suggest doing your own due diligence. For more information, you can follow this link to a Standard Lithium, LTD presentation, with the facility I toured featured on slide thirteen.
Let’s move forward together in this exciting new chapter for our community!“
Julian also shared the following link on his personal Facebook page for more information. https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/…/Standard-Lithium…
Julian did not disclose what monetary compensation this lease may mean for the City of Sulphur Springs, but shared a link to Standard Lithium’s website. Julian mentioned a $100 million investment made from Koch Strategic Partners as a favorable reason that he believed Standard Lithium was a good choice although a recent Barron’s online article showed that Koch Strategic Partners have lost 63% of their investment.
Jay W Julian’s Facebook post began to receive pushback from citizens against this controversial technology of lithium extraction from brine and what it may mean for the environment and neighbors. It will now be up to City Manager Marc Maxwell to continue negotiations with Texas Lone Star Brine, LLC. who has promised to use new technology from Standard Lithium.
