(Tetra Technologies, 19.Jan.2021) — Tetra Technologies, Inc. announced that Tim Moeller, Senior Vice-President Chemicals and Supply Chain, has been assigned to lead the company’s initiatives involving its industrial products and key mineral resources in the company’s Arkansas brine leases to support carbon capture and advances in energy storage and battery production.
Tim will lead efforts to capitalize on the company’s significant lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) and bromine resources, its bromine technologies, and calcium chloride production capabilities that support recent advancements in carbon capture infrastructure. This appointment reflects the company’s continued focus on sustainability and the environment. The application of bromine technology for emerging energy storage solutions when combined with a growing lithium battery market are expected to present growth opportunities for Tetra beyond the company’s current oil, gas and industrial applications.
Tetra has over 27,000 acres of brine leases in Arkansas with inferred lithium carbonate equivalent resources of 884,000 tons and an estimated 3.9 million tons of bromine resources, positioning the company to participate in recent energy storage advances using bromine technologies and zinc bromide. Large scale energy storage will be required to achieve the full potential of renewable energy, and technological advances using zinc bromide are promising. Using Tetra’s patented elemental bromine production process at its facilities in West Memphis, Arkansas, Tetra is capable of producing one of the highest purity zinc bromides available to the industry today, a primary attribute for energy storage applications. The company will be capitalizing on its research group with its proven expertise and track record in developing innovative chemistries to assist in these efforts.
In 2017 and 2018, the company entered into agreements with Standard Lithium Ltd. where Standard Lithium has the right to explore, produce and extract lithium in our Arkansas leases and the additional potential resources in the Mojave region (San Bernardino county) of California. In a separate project, Standard Lithium recently announced the shipment of its first large volume of lithium chloride product from their Direct Lithium Extraction Demonstration Plant near El Dorado, Arkansas, for final conversion to lithium carbonate.
In addition, a recent development for carbon capture technology requires large volumes of calcium chloride and with Tetra’s market leading position in the production and sale of calcium chloride in the United States and in Northern Europe, Tetra is well positioned for this emerging opportunity. With over 30 years of experience with efficient and existing low carbon and carbon capture production capabilities, Tetra’s advanced and well-developed supply chain give the Company the opportunity for significant growth leveraging an existing infrastructure with available capacity.
Tetra’s Chief Executive Officer Brady Murphy commented, “With our recently announced plans to deconsolidate our investment in CSI Compressco, we have positioned Tetra to focus on our core businesses and core competencies around fluids and aqueous chemistry innovation, supported by our well established vertically integrated manufacturing, supply chain infrastructure and mineral resources. Our capabilities are well suited to address these battery, energy storage and low carbon opportunities. Where appropriate, Tetra will look to partner with leading industry players through joint ventures or commercial agreements to advance these technologies or to fund significant required capital investments.”
Tetra is currently receiving some financial benefit from these initiatives, but these are longer term opportunities focused on emerging technologies and markets. Tetra’s longer term financial benefit from these initiatives will largely depend on the renewable energy and carbon capture market growth and the success of these technologies to address market requirements.
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