RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has successfully extracted lithium from brine samples from national giant Aramco’s oil fields and plans to launch a commercial direct extraction pilot program soon, Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of Mining affairs.
Lithium Infinity, also known as Lihytech, a start-up launched at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, will lead the mining project with the cooperation of Saudi mining company Ma’aden and Aramco, said Khalid al-Mudaifer. Reuters.
“They are extracting lithium through their new technology that they developed at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and their development is accelerating in this regard,” he said.
“They are building a commercial pilot on the oil fields. So the brines that come out of the field will feed this commercial pilot on a continuous basis,” Al-Mudaifer added.
Lithium is a key component of batteries in electric cars, laptops and smartphones. Reuters previously revealed that national oil companies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were planning to extract ore from oil runoff.
Other oil companies, including Exxon and Occidental, plan to take advantage of emerging technologies to filter lithium from brines, as the world seeks to move away from fossil fuels.
The deputy minister said that although the cost of extracting lithium from oil field runoff remained higher than the traditional method of extracting salt pans, he added that he expected that that if lithium prices increased, the project would soon be commercially viable.
Aramco, KAUST and Ma’aden did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comments. Ma’aden is majority-owned by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.
Saudi Arabia, whose economy has depended for decades on oil, has spent billions trying to become a hub for electric vehicles as part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s attempts to find alternative sources of wealth.