Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Blackie’s Coring took care of Hub City Lithium’s coring just west of Stoughton on Aug. This was on Stamped Drilling Rig 8. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
REGINA, STOUGHTON, ESTEVAN – Hub City Lithium has had three major advances in their Stoughton area play of late. First, in July they wrapped up their pilot plant test in Estevan. Second, they changed the ownership structure, announced Aug. 8. And third, they commenced a two-well exploration drilling program near Stoughton.
Addressing the ownership structure first, Hub City Lithium was initially set up as a joint venture with 75 per cent ownership by Vancouver-based EMP Metals, and 25 per cent ownership by Regina-based ROK Resources Ltd, an oil producer active in southeast Saskatchewan. Both are publicly traded, but Hub City was not. ROK has functioned as the operator of Hub City, while EMP was effectively most of the money and administration behind it.
Cam Taylor, CEO of ROK, told Pipeline Online on Aug. 8, “We were finally able to negotiate a roll up deal so we’re able to convert our working interest just into shares of EMP. So we will be the other major shareholder of EMP going forward. So, good for us, because we consolidated that share structure which kind of keeps everything clean. EMP owns 100 per cent of that project with us being a shareholder in them.”
Hub City Lithium drilling west of Stoughton on Aug. 13. That’s Stampede Drilling Rig 8. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
Taylor continued, “The two biggest things for us, as a publicly-traded traded oil and gas company: number one is those shares have a market value that our shareholders can look at, see the value of. When you’re a non operated interest partner, you don’t really have any control over the project in the long run, and it’s hard to tell what your value is. So being able to own shares that are being traded on the market gives you the way to test value all the time.
“The second thing is that, as a working interest partner, we’re responsible for always coming up with 25 per cent of any cash requirements. So, as we’re drilling right now, and going to continue spending money. So ROK, as an oil company, keeps using its oil and gas cash flow for the lithium business. Now, as a shareholder, we don’t have any cash requirements. So EMP will raise money as it needs it, or do strategic partnerships, but instead of us constantly sort of writing 25 per cent of the cheques, now we don’t have to. So that’s a really important thing, because we’re valued on our oil and gas cash flow and reserves. Using our cash flow to, as an example, if we were to spend $5 million over the next 12 months, on our share, then that’s money we’re not drilling oil wells with.”
As a result, ROK will own about 17.1 per cent of EMP, Taylor said.
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As for the pilot project, Taylor said, “We were able to establish all the percentages and figure out which chemistry in the resin.
“So that’s our second one. We did one with ESM, and now we finished this one with Koch. So now the process of deciding which one of them will be the DLE provider,” he said. They’re now going through proposals to see which direct lithium extraction provider to go with.”
Direct lithium extraction (DLE) is the critical process which extracts lithium from salty water, not only removing the lithium, but rejecting other elements. To be saleable as batter-grade lithium, it has to have a very high level of purity.
Very large quantities of water will be need to be pumped from underground, run through the DLE process, and then pumped back underground. The DLE first highly concentrates the extracted lithium, and a secondary refining process then converts it into battery-grade lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate, depending on the needs of the ultimate off-take recipient.
Taylor said of the pilot, “Everything worked well, and we were able to figure out what percentages of recovery, and how the different contaminants ratioed out, like when you deal with calcium or magnesium, those types of things, he said, “We got all the data we need now.”
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That data was derived from two brine collected from two test wells drilling south of Stoughton, just southwest of the Viewfield Crater, in 2023. The Viewfield Crater was formed when a large rock plummeted from the sky around 190 million years ago and left a crater about 2.4 kilometres across. It was subsequently covered by roughly a kilometre of sediment.
Viewfield – Saskatchewan (Google image). The superimposed circle illustrates the position of the buried crater. Craterexplorer.ca
Hub City is now in the process of a two-well exploration program. Taylor said, “That’ll be a vertical test to the test reservoir quality and the lithium concentrations in the north side of our PEA (preliminary economic assessment) and then we’re coming down to drill off horizontal well to test fluid flow and do some pressure testing, down at our original discoveries.”
Hub City did some coring west of Stoughton as part of the work with that exploratory well. (More on this later.)
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Pilot plant in Estevan
This past spring, Hub City began its pilot plant in an industrial building in Estevan. On May 2, Pipeline Online had the opportunity to talk to EMP Metals president and CEO Rob Gamley, Karl Kottmeier, director, and chief operating officer Paul Schubach at that pilot plant. Later in the day, Minister of Energy and Resources Jim Reiter toured the facility.
EMP is a publicly listed Vancouver based lithium exploration and development company.
Kottmeier explained that EMP has been around for about three years. They were approached by the principals of ROK Resources, Cam Taylor, CEO, and Bryden Wright, president. “They had the idea that they felt that there was a potential to explore for lithium. So we backed them with our money and their brainpower. And they’ve done a phenomenal job.”
He said, “This is sort of secondary to obviously ROK’s main focus, which is oil and gas. And we were presented with the opportunity and Cam’s and Bryden’s idea. And we thought, that’s great timing, great place. And, you know, for us, I’ve worked all over the world, Rob’s worked all over the world. And for us to be able to work in Saskatchewan is fantastic.”
Standing in front of the pilot plant in Estevan on May 2 from left, Bryden Wright (ROK president & COO), Paul Schubach (EMP COO), Rob Gamley (EMP CEO), Darcy Walker (EMP Field supervisor). Photo by Brian Zinchuk
Why Saskatchewan?
They’re both from British Columbia. Kottmeier spent his career running public companies in hard rock mining, while Gamley spent time in biotechnology, genetics and immunology, but he found his way into minerals and mining.
Asked why they were in Saskatchewan, looking for lithium, Gamley said, “It’s world class. First of all, there’s world class geology. We’ve got the highest lithium brine concentrations in Canada that have been discovered to date, here in Saskatchewan. It’s an amazing jurisdiction to operate in. Strong support from both public and government. It’s no better place to be.”
In hard rock mining, you literally have to build a road through hard rock just to get to your future mine site. But the sites Hub City Lithium is working on have a grid road running past them, and they have ready access to the oil and gas services needed for this sort of development.
Kottmeier said, “This is about as advanced a place that you can explore for mineral resources, let’s call it that, that I’ve ever seen. Like, this is the equivalent of drilling in downtown Vancouver, right? But better, because you’ve got access, you’ve got ability, you’ve got people, you’ve got all the infrastructure you could possibly want, specific to what you’re doing.”
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More than just electric vehicles, but they’re a big deal, too
While most of the focus on lithium development has been for electric vehicles, Kottmeier and Gamley note it’s needed for many more battery applications, from grid-scale storage of solar power to electric toothbrushes. “People are focusing on everyday that it’s ‘all about vehicles.’ No, you need batteries to store the energy you’re making,” Kottmeier said.
There’s often discussion about new and different battery formulations, but one thing lithium has going for it is the fact lithium is the lightest metal on the periodic table, period, and that’s never going to change. And that light weight is a critical factor for any battery application that moves.
“It’s a fact,” Kottmeier said of it being the lightest metal. “You can get different combinations of things, but it’s, it’s actually a fairly clean metal to extract.”
“What mess are you causing to produce with that which you need? So if you need something like graphite, or graphene, or (cobalt) in, Congo, DRC, like these are horribly damaging things to produce. And if you can just pump it up out of the ground, separate and pump the water right back down from where it came, that’s a nice closed loop,” he said, referring to the DLE method of producing lithium.
Hub City Lithium pilot plant in May. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
On that note, Gamley pointed to this method as being a “significantly more sustainable option.”
He said, “Your environmental surface footprint is significantly reduced with a DLE alternative.”
Hard rock lithium extraction takes a lot more energy, especially when it comes to rock crushing and heating, Gamley pointed out. “There’s also nasty byproducts in that process.”
In contrast, the byproduct from DLE will be freshwater consumed for the process, and the brine produced, which is then pumped back down underground. There won’t be massive spill piles or tailings ponds.
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Paul Schubach, EMP’s chief operating officer and a professional engineer, spent greater than a decade working onsite at Mosaic Potash Belle Plaine, the world’s largest potash solution mine.
He said, “There’s going to be a variety of solids that will be accumulated throughout the softening process, but the majority of our contaminants are going to remain in the brine. It is really just the contaminants that are left post-DLE that we are going to have to deal with. And so that will come out through the concentrate, refine and convert stages where you’ll be left with a filter cake that will go to a regular land disposal site. Approximate tonnage is about a third of our output tonnage will be a waste byproduct.”
He noted that roughly 99 per cent of their waste byproducts return back to the disposal formation.
Paul Schubach holding a bottle of lithium eluent from the pilot plant. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
Pilot details
The DLE pilot commenced in early April and wrapped up at the end of June. This was the second pilot conducted by Hub City Lithium. It involved several tanks, plumbing, and a processing system inside metal box smaller than a standard shipping container.
Pilot refining takes place in Richmond, British Columbia with Saltworks Technologies, a global industrial wastewater treatment and lithium refining company, they are working with to develop the commercial-scale refining into a battery-grade product.
“We are pre-treating the brine, pre filtering it, sending it through DLE and then producing a lithium chloride eluent on the output of the equipment.”
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The brine fluid being tested in May was from the 2-22 well, near the Viewfield Crater.
The crater’s influence on the high concentrations found is part of their consideration. Schubach said, “It’s definitely an intriguing theory as to why the concentrations are so high. We actually are working right now with the U of R. We’ve got some grad student programs that are happening to look at the history and come up with some theories as to why we have such concentrated lithium in the province, on the southern side of the province. So there’s, there’s some work going on in the background, that we’re helping support through the university, just to see if we can pinpoint, what is the cause for the high concentration? What ultimately brought the lithium into that reservoir? And then how do we identify future resources of lithium throughout the province through testing, drilling, etc.?”
Pilot results announced
On Aug. 20, EMP announced results of its pilot plant. Its release said, “The facility houses the first Koch Technology Solutions (KTS) DLE pilot skid commissioned and operated in Canada. Saltworks Technologies provided pre- and post-DLE systems at site, and complete concentrate, refine, convert (CRC) technology for the production of battery-grade lithium carbonate.
“The extremely ‘clean’ geological brine, without H2S or appreciable organics, was processed through Koch Technology Solutions’ Li-Pro™ pilot over 75 days, demonstrating, a lithium recovery of greater than 97%, impurity rejection of greater than 99% (Refer to Table 1).”
Table 1
| Element | Retention (%) | Rejection (%) |
| Li | 97.0 | |
| Na | 99.95 | |
| K | 99.95 | |
| Ca | 99.3 | |
| Mg | 98.5 | |
| Sr | 99.5 | |
| B | 93.0 |
Garrett Krall, Lithium Business Leader at KTS, said, “KTS is thrilled with the industry-leading results Li-Pro™ has delivered. EMP has pulled together a strong team that is rapidly advancing to commercial project deployment with a truly economically advantaged solution.”
Megan Low, VP of Lithium Process Solutions at Saltworks, said, “The site pilot produced lithium concentrations in the DLE eluate exceeding 2000 mg/L with a Li:TDS ratio greater than 0.1, almost non-detectable organics, extremely low silica, and steady performance improvements as the system was remote optimized.
“Li:TDS ratio is a key performance indicator,” explained Low. “A ratio of 0.1 or higher is among top performing DLE systems and is reflective of the high quality and clean Saskatchewan brine processed. This Li:TDS ratio will allow efficient downstream refining to battery-grade materials. This performance represents a new industry benchmark for a continuous at-site DLE pilot,” concluded Low.
Schubach said, “Combining of efforts between EMP, KTS, and Saltworks has delivered results that exceeded expectations, proving the value of our Saskatchewan-based assets.”
The DLE eluate has been delivered to Saltworks’ headquarters for processing through their on-site Pilot 10 lithium refinery to convert the facility produced eluate into a battery-grade lithium carbonate for dispatch to off-takers.
Stamped Drilling Rig 8, drilling for Hub City Lithium on Aug. 13. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
Summer drilling program
West of Stoughton, and north of the first two wells, Hub City drilled a vertical test well, 8-24, cutting core from their targeted formations.
“The wells will provide critical pressure, flow rate and fluid composition data, which will be used for future engineering studies and reservoir modeling, including a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study that is currently underway,” EMP said in a Aug. 13 press release. It added the, “Program will build on the highest lithium concentrations recorded in a Canadian brine to-date, up to 237 mg/l at the Viewfield 2-22 well, and is intended to determine brine parameters in the area.
The first well’s completion and testing of brine concentration and flow rates expected to take an additional three weeks. The second well (4-23) will be a one mile horizontal well to confirm pressures, deliverability and depletion of various target reservoir zones for the ongoing FEED study in the project area.
The horizontal well is planned where Hub City’s proposed stage one commercial facility will be located.
All of this is meant to flesh out the company’s preliminary economic assessment that was filed earlier this year on February 15.
There’s pumpjacks in all directions from the wellsite west of Stoughton. Will the stars align twice in the same spot? Photo by Brian Zinchuk.
Stars might align, twice
What’s perhaps most remarkable about Hub City’s exploration into the Duperow formation near Stoughton is that it is almost precisely where the centre of activity was during the Bakken Boom. The principal Crecent Point (now Veren) battery and gas plant for the region is just a few miles to the northeast of the 4-23 well. If this lithium thing works out, it’s as if the stars aligned, twice, on the exact same spot in southeast Saskatchewan.
Core being cleaned before analysis. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
Schubach said, “We get to build off the backbone of the existing infrastructure that’s in place. We don’t have to build roads. Power and gas, etc, those are all available and close by to get to the sites that we want, versus some remote mining projects where you have to build all of that infrastructure to get to the resource. So, we are very, call it fortunate, call it lucky, that we’re getting to build off this backbone of a 50 year old gas history here in south Saskatchewan.”
Local communities like Estevan and Weyburn have the technical service staff and companies to do this sort of work. “You’re not building camps, you’re not flying people in and out,” Schubach said.
The capital outlay for this year is expected to be in the $10 million range.
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Impetus and commercialization
Asked about their impetus to get into the lithium game, including the adoption of electric vehicles, Gamely said that’s all part of the macro backdrop, with “lithium being the new oil, to power the Green Revolution.”
Asked about commercialization timeframes, Schubach said, “I think, best case scenario, and all the stars need to align. We need to provide good results on our drill programs, our horizontal flow testing all the detailed engineering work, which leads us up to closer to the end of this year. But also financing is going to come into play there, with whether we engage a partner or look to raise that money. We’re talking big dollars. So there’s some hurdles there to get all the money in to be able to start issuing POs on long lead items, etc.
Somewhere in this core might be answers to the lithium question. Photo by Brian Zinchu
“Best case scenario we’d be probably looking at, initial production in ‘26. Again, understanding that this is a first of its kind, first, brine-to-battery grade lithium carbonate facility. And I would assume anywhere from, there’ll be some timeframe to ramp up to actual on-spec, commercial proven production. So ‘26 is when we feel that we could start pushing the start button on a lot of this equipment, and then having meaningful production in ‘27.”
Hub City Lithium is looking at a staged approach, with the Stage 1 facility about 3,000 tonnes per year in production capacity. Schubach said, “And then from there, a hub and spoke model where you can copy and paste that same footprint across the rest of your land holdings. The ultimate goal, and the PEA that we’ve put out, is upwards of 19,000 tons per year on the initial seven years of production.”
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Schubach said, “That would be the long-term goal, long-term vision. But really, our focus right now is to get the first one, financed, built, proven, and then look to expand across the land holdings with all the learnings coming out of that initial facility.”
Asked how hard it is to find investment money, given that lithium prices have fallen from dizzying heights of US$70,000 per tonne to around US$12,500 per tonne in August, and electric vehicle sales have plummeted in some cases compared to expectation, Gamley was retrospect. He said, “It’s a fair point and certainly a more challenging environment than it is when you know lithium is at $70,000 a tonne. However, everybody realizes, I think, that EVs are here to stay. And that there’s going to be increasing adoption over time and especially as costs, certain costs come down and technologies improve.
“Further, there’s a big push for onshoring and reshoring for securing domestic supply chains and global supply chains for critical minerals. The long term demand picture is still intact. There is funding in place and the funding will go to the best in class projects of which ,you know, I’m personally biased, but of which ours is. So there will always be people willing to write checks for good projects and good people.”
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