[Rockhounds] This Arkansas Town Could Become the Epicenter of a U.S. Lithium Boom

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

MAGNOLIA, Ark.—Slipping a handgun into his belt, the mayor of this small
town hopped out of his 1995 Ford
<https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/F> pickup
and went in search of further evidence of a new energy boom.

On the other side of a freshly painted gate, Mayor Parnell Vann pointed out
a squat blue spire of valves, bolts and pressure gauges attached to a
long-dormant well—a telltale sign someone means to bring it back to life.
On the thick-wooded back roads, crisscrossing fields where oil drillers
gave up long ago, Vann found two more similar wells that day.

These days, companies in the area aren’t looking to find more oil—they are
instead prospecting for lithium, a metal that is increasingly prized around
the world as an essential ingredient in electric-vehicle batteries.
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-surprising-new-source-of-lithium-for-batteries-744463c4?mod=article_inline>

If the U.S. is to ease its dependence for lithium on other countries such
as China, it may need this quiet corner of southwest Arkansas to lead the
way.

Exxon Mobil <https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/XOM> XOM 1.24%increase;
green up pointing triangle
<https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/XOM?mod=chiclets>, a new player in
the hunt for U.S. lithium, is planning to build one of the world’s largest
lithium processing facilities not far from Magnolia, with a capacity to
produce 75,000 to 100,000 metric tons of lithium a year, according to
people familiar with the matter.

At that scale, it would equate to about 15% of all finished lithium
produced globally last year, according to one analyst.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-arkansas-town-could-become-the-epicenter-of-a-u-s-lithium-boom-54ad7306