Robert Mintak of Standard Lithium Talks Equinor and Arkansas as Global Leader
Welcome to Lithium Link, your resource for insightful news and expert commentary on the latest happenings in the Arkansas lithium scene.
This Week: Standard Lithium CEO Robert Mintak
Watch our two-part interview with Robert Mintak, the CEO of Standard Lithium Ltd. of Vancouver, who sat down with us for an overview of the company’s South Arkansas operations and its new partnership with Equinor ASA, a multinational energy company based in Norway.
Per the deal, Equinor will invest $160 million and take stakes in two Standard Lithium operations, including a planned $1.3 billion lithium extraction plant in Lafayette County that the company refers to as the Southwest Arkansas Project.
Mintak said the deal will allow his company to accelerate work on the project, which boasts a higher concentration of lithium than what Standard is currently pulling from its demonstration plant near El Dorado, operated in partnership with Lanxess.
“The Southwest Arkansas Project, the grades are double what we see on the brownfield Lanxess project,” he said.
Mintak, whose company has pioneered the direct lithium extraction (DLE) method in Arkansas, also talked about why his company and others have found South Arkansas to be such a choice environment for lithium production. It’s a combination of factors that include a high-grade resource, an established brine industry, a talented workforce and a social license to operate.
“It’s an extremely attractive opportunity to put South Arkansas on the global stage for responsible critical minerals production,” he said.
Watch Part 1 of our interview here:
A Global Leader
Mintak is clear that Arkansas has a long-lasting opportunity with the growth of the lithium industry in Arkansas. At the center of that need: the lithium-ion battery.
“The lithium-ion battery is one of the most important technology advancements of the 21st century,” he said. “It’s up there with the semiconductor.”
The opportunity for South Arkansas, he said, is to supply the key mineral to that technology — a technology that is critical to national security and the success of billions of dollars in investments in the battery supply chain.
Mintak also pointed out that lithium batteries — essential to everything from electric vehicles to laptops — will also be important to the growth of artificial intelligence, an energy-intensive technology that will also require “a significant amount of stationary storage, and lithium-ion batteries and other lithium battery chemistries will be the bulk of that.”
Finally, Mintak noted that, in addition to the economic benefits the state could reap from the growth of the lithium industry, Arkansas could become a global model for similar lithium extraction industries around the world, with local industry leaders and academic institutions exporting cutting-edge industry knowledge.
“This is a region where you can actually attract the … talent to come and be trained here, potentially exporting it out, but bringing in the programs that could potentially utilize the resource and the technologies to build an academic legacy for the state,” he said.
Watch Part 1 and Part 2 of our interview, as well as two bonus clips: “Why Arkansas Is Attractive for Lithium Production” and “How Arkansas Can Be a Global Lithium Training Resource.”
Also this month:
Arkansas & Battery Production:
Recent weeks have seen major new developments on the battery manufacturing front.
First: ExxonMobil announced on June 25 that it signed a memorandum of understanding to deliver 100,000 metric tons of South Arkansas lithium to SK On, a global electric vehicle battery developer.
The lithium would come from Exxon’s first planned project in Arkansas. SK On said it plans to use lithium in its EV battery manufacturing operations in the U.S.
Reuters has more on the deal here.
Second:
Amplify Cell Technologies — a joint venture among Daimler Truck, Paccar and Accelera by Cummins — broke ground June 28 on an electric vehicle battery production facility in Marshall County, Mississippi.
“Two thousand, good-paying, full-time jobs. A hundred and thirty million dollars in payroll. It’s going to be paid out to our people every single year,” Gov. Tate Reeves said, according to WREG-TV.
The factory could create 2,000 manufacturing jobs and is looking to start production in 2027.
Read more about the company’s plans in the Memphis Business Journal.
Parting Shot
Looking for more Arkansas Lithium News? Follow the Arkansas Lithium Innovation Hub on LinkedIn. Backed by the organizers of this year’s Arkansas Lithium Innovation Summit, the Lithium Innovation Hub includes business, community and government leaders who continue to collaborate and help prepare Arkansas to benefit from the economic impact of the industries that will demand lithium. Follow the Arkansas Lithium Innovation Hub for the latest developments and announcements.
