Pantera (ASX:PFE) smacks more prime acreage for Arkansas ambitions
June 6, 2024Pantera Minerals has leased another 3700 lithium brine acres to add to its Smackover project, now standing at over 22,000 acres and growing in a namesake Arkansas formation considered one of the most prolific continental resources of its kind.
ExxonMobil has targeted first production in 2027 from its own acreage in the Smackover formation, and the new territory puts Pantera only behind five major established players.
Brine from the formerly productive oil field is the only source of commercial bromine in the US, and Galvanic Energy’s prospect alone has been touted as one of the largest lithium brine resources in the continent.
Only Exxon, Albermarle, Tetra, Equinor, and Standard Lithium are now ahead of Pantera in acreage, and the Australian junior plans to continue upping its stake.
Pantera Executive Chairman Barnaby Egerton-Warburton said it was an outstanding result as it continued to lease in the new US lithium heartland.
“Our exclusive abstract agreement continues to allow us to lease with little to no competition as our focus moves towards drilling, exploration and resource definition,” Egerton-Warburton said.
“I also note the further validation of the Smackover Lithium Brine Play with the entry of Norway’s Equinor, a world-class leading energy company.”
Pantera has not mentioned an upper limit to its acreage ambitions but has noted its approach to a 25,000 milestone.
That figure would put it 1k shy of four direct lithium extraction production pads covering 6500 acres a piece producing up to 4000 yearly tonnes of lithium carbonate if in line with other developmental projects.
Two-dimensional seismic data has been acquired, and Pantera has a sub-surface program fully underway to identify an optimal re-entry well.
Advanced negotiations for a rig are planning for the first well to come in for the third quarter of 2024, and Pantera plans to test re-entry well samples with multiple extraction technologists as it eyes off more Arkansas acreage.
Read more on the Smackover Formation from the Yale School of Environment: In Rush for Lithium, Miners Turn to the Oil Fields of Arkansas
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