The sprint to lease Northeast Texas land above the lithium rich Smackover Formation is heating up.
Black Mountain Lithium, a subsidiary of Fort Worth-based Black Mountain, has joined Canadian company Standard Lithium in the hunt for the sought-after mineral that powers almost all modern batteries.
In 2023, Standard reported finding the purist lithium brine samples in North America below Cass and Franklin counties. Black Mountain appears to be focusing its leasing and lobbying efforts on Franklin County — a rural area between Sulphur Springs and Mount Pleasant — where local opposition to renewable energy projects also has flared.
Black Mountain is new to the lithium industry and even newer to East Texas. The company’s largest projects are in upstream oil and gas with another subsidiary focusing on battery energy storage. Black Mountain Lithium was incorporated in January.
The company appeared to begin soliciting Franklin County landowners for their lithium brine around December, according to mineral lease contracts obtained by the News-Journal.
By January, Black Mountain approached Mayor Brad Hyman of Mount Vernon, the largest town in Franklin County, to organize a town hall meeting where residents could learn more about brine mining and the company’s vision for the area. A date for that meeting has not been finalized.
Black Mountain declined multiple requests for comment, and little of the company’s plan for East Texas lithium is available in the public domain.
However, Black Mountain CEO Rhett Bennett acknowledged his interest in lithium mining more than a year ago in a LinkedIn post. The post displayed a graph of underinvestment in battery metal extraction with the above caption reading: “Looks like prolific times ahead for the Miners.”
Residents want transparency
Standard Lithium began hunting for leases in Franklin County before Black Mountain, and the Canadian firm’s secretive approach to doing business troubled some local residents who fear the environmental consequences of lithium extraction.
“I haven’t heard from anybody at Standard Lithium at all,” Hyman said.
Black Mountain’s overtures to the community were a welcome change to what Hyman described as an opaque industry that’s left his community in the dark.
“Come share with the community what it is that you’re doing. Maybe it’ll dispel some of the fears that people have around the unknown of what lithium extraction looks like,” Hyman said.
A group of Mount Vernon residents have organized against large solar farms and municipal scale battery storage projects proposed for Franklin County.
Lithium is an essential ingredient for the batteries that store solar energy, and each of the industries — solar, batteries and lithium — have come under fire from Mount Vernon activists for what they say is a lack of communication.
Hyman sees merit in those concerns.
“With these energy companies, the solar stuff going on, companies will talk about how good they are, that they’ll be partners with your community,” he said. “Yet they don’t have the time to actually walk through the front door of City Hall and say, ‘Hey, here’s who we are and what we’re wanting to do.’ ”
The Mount Vernon mayor said the town was not prepared to sign a deal for the city’s minerals as actual lithium production is thought to be five to seven years out. Still, Hyman said, “we are not against lithium — we just need to know more.”
He cautioned private landowners against signing leases so far ahead of anticipated production.
Hyman also noted one other key difference between Standard Lithium and Black Mountain: the Fort Worth-based company seems to be prioritizing mineral leases that include lithium and oil and gas, allowing Black Mountain to pivot depending on what’s found while drilling.
“But right now, we want to understand more about the industry and its environmental impacts,” Hyman said.
Earlier this year, lithium companies operating in East Texas as well as a hydrogeologist familiar with the lithium mining technology told the News-Journal that Direct Lithium Extraction is the lowest-impact method of mining.
The Nature Conservancy, a leading environmental advocacy group, shared that assessment. Direct Lithium Extraction has the same footprint as a fracking well but requires fewer wells that are drilled less often.
