North Louisiana lithium search intensifies, LSU team to canvas Smackover

• BY LIZ SWAINE | Staff writer  shreveportbossieradvocate.com

Industry reports say the Smackover geologic formation upon which north Louisiana sits may contain enough lithium to power 50 million electric vehicles.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the Arkansas Smackover alone could contain 5.1 million to 19 million metric tons of the material.

The chemical element has been found in the same formation in Northeast Texas, and in Arkansas and Texas there are concentrations high enough to make extraction commercially feasible.

Now, testing efforts are focusing on Louisiana.

Ipsita Gupta, a Ph.D. and associate professor at the LSU Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, has received a grant to determine exactly what lurks in produced waters from oil and gas fields in Louisiana’s Smackover geologic formation. 

In addition to lithium, the testing will identify 22 different elements and ions, Gupta told The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate.

“It’ll be chlorine, bromine, lithium, magnesium, calcium bicarbonate, the total dissolved salts, so to speak, that you find in formation waters, subsurface formation waters, or produce waters from oil and gas fields, brines,” Gupta said. 

The $261,000 grant was directed to Gupta from the Idaho National Laboratory/Battelle Energy Alliance, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office. Collaborators include geochemists, geothermal experts, research scientists and scientific officers from Idaho National Laboratory, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the LSU Petroleum Engineering and Oceanography and Coastal Sciences departments.

Though the award was received just days ago, Gupta says work is already underway.

“My plan is to really target from northwest all the way to the northeast, different locations, and I have been reaching out, and our department with the help of Dr. [David] Schechter, who's our chairperson, we've been reaching out to oil and gas operators in north Louisiana for sample collection.”

Gupta is developing a list of possible test sites now.

She will be looking for operators in the Smackover who are willing to donate water samples, and she would appreciate support from north Louisiana operators.

“They don't have to do anything for except to allow us to meet with them and collect the water,” Gupta said. The water will be returned to LSU for analysis, which Gupta says will take several months.

The results of the testing will be shared with the operators.

Gupta is excited at the scope of the testing and happy that a group of petroleum engineering students will be involved and learn the process.

“LSU petroleum engineering is a national leader in petroleum and subsurface energy engineering and advanced science engineering and responsible stewardship of subsurface energy systems,” she says.

Her report will be complete by September 2026.

The state has already begun preparing.

In 2024, Senate Bill 268, authored by state Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, gave those who purchase "equipment, machines and other items used in lithium recovery activities" a rebate on the state portion of sales tax paid.

“This project is very important for our state, in my opinion," Gupta said. "My fingers are crossed.”