Gavin Jensen, P.Geo., FGC, with the Saskatchewan Geological Survey stated the importance of Saskatchewan’s natural resource sector to our economy and quality of life and said finding new industries and opportunities within the province ensures that continues.
Jensen said Australia leads the world in lithium production with some also in South America. Mauer called it a “monumental feat” that the global supply capacity of this resource doubled in a few years, but projections about demand by 2030 show a lot more production is necessary.
Mauer explained that the battery materials supply chain has “gone crazy” in recent years with auto manufacturers committing to electrifying their fleets. Battery manufacturers are building facilities in North America. He said this “massive” downstream investment in North America comes after years of watching the rest of the world move ahead on this.
He said this investment is great, but if North America relies on importing resources, increasing our domestic production isn’t fixed. There is one lithium mine in North America – an evaporation pond in Nevada which Mauer said produced less than a half a percentage of the global supply in 2022.
They each explained how they contributed to lithium exploration in Saskatchewan. While describing 3.5 billion years of Saskatchewan’s geological history, Jensen explained how oil and gas brines in two basins – Williston and Alberta – migrate into Saskatchewan. In 2011, he wanted to sample brines from oil and gas wells to understand their chemistry. Interest in lithium was developing at the time. Fast forward ten years, the Canadian government released its list of critical minerals, which includes lithium.
He described his research work visiting wellheads in Saskatchewan to collect samples of oil well water. He found the highest lithium values in the Duperow Formation in southeast Saskatchewan. In recent years, more sampling by EMP Metals Corp., Prairie Lithium, and Grounded Lithium Corp. provided more information about lithium concentrations in the province. The highest concentration recorded in a brine in Saskatchewan and Canada to date is 259 mg/l.
Lithium got Mauer’s attention in 2016 — as did Jensen’s research. After earning a geology degree at the University of Regina, he researched resources we would need in the future. Saskatchewan’s lithium concentrations intrigued him, so he proposed a master’s study at the U of R to understand the origin and evolution of lithium so its commercial potential in Saskatchewan’s brines could be quantified and he could develop a fundamental understanding of the resource.
He worked to understand where lithium would be most concentrated and why there because drilling wells is expensive. He expanded beyond the six previously publicized rock layers in the Duperow Formation to understand over 24. In 2018, he “cracked that code” and a year later, incorporated Prairie Lithium to develop a brine project south of Weyburn and west of Estevan. The area’s infrastructure, including highways, powerlines, fresh water and natural gas make it one of the most accessible lithium brine resources on the planet.
In November 2021, Prairie Lithium became the first in Canada to drill an exploration well for lithium at a cost of well over $2 million. That vertical well perforated eight zones to test the vertical distribution of lithium and proved the lithium in that formation is vertically isolated.
A second well 20 km south was a re-entry in a geothermal well, perforating the same intervals. Its lithium concentration correlated with the first well. A third well is seven kilometers to the north. They drilled another 15o meters in an oil well that was no longer producing to find slightly lower concentrations. Mauer said more work is needed to fully understand the economic and production potential of the Duperow aquifer, but these wells show lateral continuity of lithium concentrations within the formation.
Mauer said Prairie Lithium was sold to Arizona Lithium, a larger lithium exploration development company this year. He is executive director of Arizona Lithium.
Mauer said significant investments have been made into direct lithium extraction technology (DLE) for chemical processing of this resource. It selectively removes lithium from the brine. To go into production, Mauer said you need to understand chemical engineering, geology and hydro geology and geophysics, combining that knowledge to choose the appropriate DLE for different brines.
