Arkansas Lithium Boom: What to Expect

What’s new: Experts predict Arkansas will be the site of a lithium boom

Why it matters: Southern Arkansas’s economy and jobs will boom

Who’s currently involved: Standard Lithium, Equinor, Albemarle, Lanxess, Tetra Technologies, Saltwerx, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Energy Exploration Technologies 

 

Why Lithium?

The biggest issue with clean energy? Storing it. Wind and solar energy are dependent on current conditions, and excess during a particularly windy or sunny day needs to be stored for calmer days.

Batteries become vital in a clean-energy system. Lithium batteries stand to replace lead-acid batteries for several reasons:

• Longer lifespan: significantly more charge & discharge cycles
• Faster charging: reduces downtime and improves efficiency
• Consistent performance: more consistent voltage output
• Higher energy density: lithium can store more energy in a smaller, lighter battery
• Lower maintenance: no need for watering/equalizing
• Reduced environmental impact: fewer replacements = less waste

Beyond the benefits of lithium batteries, there’s also its broad popularity: it has retained its potential throughout the past presidential administrations and political uncertainty.

 

Why Southern Arkansas?

Southern Arkansas has a huge source of high-quality lithium, and towns like El Dorado and Lewisville stand to benefit from it.

This isn’t Southern AR’s first mineral rodeo. In the 1920s, the El Dorado area was the world’s most productive oil extraction site. The local economy boomed as oil encouraged job growth.

Now, companies like Standard Lithium and ExxonMobil have recognized Southern Arkansas’s potential to be the world’s most productive lithium extraction site, with Standard planning to build new plants in El Dorado and Lewisville.

Some of Hugg & Hall’s team members, including Rick Vollmer, VP of Growth and Strategy, have been researching the potential lithium boom for years.

Nic Cole, Rental Manager in El Dorado said, “South Arkansas, especially the area between Texarkana and El Dorado, will be booming with construction if half of the talked-about projects come to fruition.”

How it works

Standard Lithium plans to extract lithium from the bromine throughout the Smackover Formation, a large underground source of bromine.

The Smackover Formation is a stretch of mineral-rich, high-salinity brine. This brine contains bromine, which can be processed into lithium.

What’s happening in Southern Arkansas

Standard & Equinor have received national attention for their planned lithium-processing facilities, each of which are estimated to be nearly half-a-billion-dollar projects. They are funded in part by significant investors like Koch Industries and in part by the US Department of Energy, showing national players’ interest.

Local Accelerators and Summits

In order to speed the process, the Arkansas Lithium Technology Accelerator (ALTA) has invited high-powered startups to engage with lithium industry leaders.

“We are very excited to launch the Arkansas Lithium Technology Accelerator, our newest and potentially most impactful program for the state’s long-term economic benefit, and the first industry-driven Lithium battery supply chain accelerator in the country,” said Arthur Orduña, executive director of The Venture Center, courtesy of KATV.

This year’s cohort will feature companies that identify solutions for mineral processing, geothermal deployment, and battery materials.

Arkansas Lithium Summit is also organizing an Innovation Summit to be held in October in Little Rock, which will showcase Arkansas’s lithium reserves and the state’s potential to meet worldwide demand.

John Impson, Hugg & Hall Territory GM in El Dorado, has been attending events with Arkansas Lithium Summit since 2024. He has a front-row seat to the innovation and changes happening in the industry. He said that the organization’s events are very informative and a good source of information for anyone who would like to know more.

Other players

Beyond ALTA and Standard Lithium, ExxonMobil & Chevron are purchasing hundreds of thousands of acres around Standard Lithium’s planned facility.

The players in Arkansas’ lithium boom keep changing, with Pantera Lithium (originally a frontrunner in the industry) selling their project to Energy Exploration Technologies for $26.1M in July 2025. We can expect to see continual changes throughout the next few years.

 

 

Why does it matter?

Fewer foreign imports

The US currently imports more than 25% of the lithium it needs annually, but the estimated lithium in the Smackover Formation will more than cover the US’ needs.

As the US creates more infrastructure around lithium mines, we will import less lithium from other countries. Analysts hope that fewer imports will aid national security efforts, alongside creating new jobs.

Material royalties

Arkansans with bromine deposits under their land stand to make a lot of money from the processing, with Standard Lithium and the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission approving a 2.50% royalty rate on lithium extracted from the brine.

New jobs

Even Southern Arkansas residents who don’t own land will benefit. Standard and Equinor are expected to bring hundreds of new jobs to the area as lithium production surges over the next 15 years.

“Each one of these projects has a lifespan of well over 20 years…. These are not like oil and gas wells that may deplete over a six-year period. These are long-duration, permanent long-term jobs,” said David Park, CEO of Standard Lithium, courtesy of KATV.

Another state that has experienced a lithium boom, Nevada, has experienced job growth two times faster than the national rate.

These jobs may be more lucrative than others in the area. They will also help provide more opportunities to former employees of Murphy Oil. Murphy moved its headquarters from El Dorado to Houston in 2020.

Experts expect Southern Arkansas’s economy to grow exponentially. The lithium boom is predicted to provide a bigger injection of wealth than the oil boom in the 1920s. Erik Pollock, director of the University of Arkansas Stable Isotope Lab and Trace Element and Radiogenic Isotope Lab, expects $2–$3 billion a year will enter the Arkansas economy.

 

At Hugg & Hall, we’re excited to see what the lithium boom will do for Southern Arkansas. Have questions or thoughts on the lithium boom? We’d like to hear from you. Email marketing@hugghall.com!

 

Editor’s note: all information in this article is as of time of publishing (July 2025). Hugg & Hall will endeavor to keep this blog up to date with any major changes. 

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