n March 13th people packed the council chambers at City Hall, with several standing or sitting on the floor, for Anson Resources’ open house. Michael Swenson, a lobbying consultant working for Anson, and Sherri Mantanona, who does project development for A1 Lithium (owned by Anson), presented on lithium mining in general and answered questions about their Green River projects.
Swenson explained their mining method (Direct Lithium Extraction or DLE) and compared it to methods used to soften well water. He shared a video about oil drilling showing a roughly similar extraction process (titled “Life Cycle of Oil & Gas Wells - from Drilling to Completion” on YouTube). Swenson explained that although Anson owns 500 acre-feet of water rights and leases 2,500 acre-feet of water rights, they will only use about 250 acre-feet per year of Green River water and inject about 90% of this water into the ground. Regarding site safety, A1 will let the GR Fire Department know what is being stored and Jeff Terra, an A1 engineer, later explained that “lithium and water are very safe together; there is no chance of oxidizing or exploding”. On-site tanks would also only hold lithium brine for about six hours before injecting spent brine back into the ground.
Michael Swenson then described what he understood happened on March 8th: on March 6th, A1 was drilling 1,500 feet down and reached the Navajo aquifer. They then created a “kill mud” mix to stop the flow. They didn’t expect the volume of water that later came up. The rig was overwhelmed and it reportedly took 33 hours to develop a mud that killed the well. This was later disputed by Kelly Dunham and Chris Sheeter who said that there was a “geyser” erupting from the well after Swenson said it was plugged, to which Swenson said he must have misheard the site foreman. Swenson also explained that Anson intentionally breached the site’s berms to overflow into old unlined catch basins, instead of nearby Brown’s Wash. The collected water was trucked off to a Utah DWQ disposal site at Danish Flat.
A1 is using this well to study local conditions and has since added a blowout preventer and is considering changes suggested by an on-site engineer such as: drilling with fluid instead of air and re-engineering the casing of future well installations. Swenson said that there is a “near zero” chance of another March 8th-type incident.
Swenson said that they were already planning, but hadn’t yet publicized, an open house before the uncontrolled pressurized water incident at their pilot well site. An open house that was scheduled shortly after was originally going to include site tours. Anson became worried about a likely big crowd, and was also anxious about protecting proprietary technology, and that local people that “hate the plant” might take pictures on the tour.
Skeptical members of the audience were concerned about the pilot well’s proximity to the Green River, its broader regional impact, and safety procedures. Swenson’s answers didn’t totally remove their concerns: Chris Dunham remained worried how Anson would deal with potentially running into 10,000 PSI flammable gas pockets. For some, the Floy natural gas leak last year and several oil blowouts closer to town loomed large in their memory. City Councilor Guy Webster and City Manager Tyler Hunt noted that Anson has been forthcoming with information and Hunt added that the City trusts the state of Utah to adequately regulate the project.
Many attendees were interested in the economic impact on Green River, and supported of the project. The market for lithium is growing with subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act and the rise of electric vehicles. Hunt said that personally he wanted Green River to “get a slice of the pie” and challenge China and “take them off their pedestal”. Several others also expressed hope that more jobs would slow the population decline that’s reached 11% over the past ten years. While the current workforce is about 10 people from Aztec Drilling of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Anson expects a 21/2 year construction period to employ about 150 people and ongoing operations to employ 55-80 people when long term production begins in 2027 on a total of 4 or 5 wells. The pilot plant will begin production later this year, enjoying expedited permitting because the well is predicted to produce very little air pollution on a privately-owned brownfield site.
A1 Lithium recently started an email newsletter, and other official updates from Anson Resources can be found at: https://www.ansonresources.com/investor-centre/#asxannouncemnts