Worley is the Lead Integration Delivery Partner for Rio Tinto’s lithium project in Argentina – Rincon Mining, producing 50,000 tonnes of battery‑grade lithium carbonate per year.
October 23, 2025 • 4 min read
Unlocking Arkansas’s
lithium potential:
from resource to reality
The lithium reserves beneath Arkansas – particularly within the Smackover Formation – represent one of the most significant untapped opportunities in the global energy transition. With enough lithium to meet 2030’s global demand, nine times over, Arkansas is uniquely positioned to become a cornerstone in America’s ambitions to onshore energy and minerals independence.
While Arkansas leads the charge, it’s part of a broader national opportunity – regions like Utah, Nevada, California’s Salton Sea, and North Carolina’s historic Tin-Spodumene Belt are also emerging as key players in the U.S. lithium landscape.
However, realizing this potential needs more than geological abundance. It demands a coordinated approach to technology, economics, policy, and execution. “We’ve seen this pattern before,” says Mike Placer, Americas Sector and Sales Lead – Mining Minerals and Metals. “Promising deposits, accelerating demand, eager investors, ambitious timelines. Then reality hits: direct lithium extraction (DLE) isn’t a plug-and-play technology.”
That’s where experience matters. We help companies navigate this complexity by bringing first-of-a-kind technology expertise to market.
Mike Placer
Americas Sector and Sales Lead – Mining, Minerals and Metals
From supply chain volatility to ecological concerns, lithium mining sits at the intersection of global challenges and transformative potential. Tackling these issues needs a blend of strategic thinking, practical innovation and execution experience.
We explore four critical areas where targeted solutions are already making a difference.
Statistic Cards
200+
executed lithium projects
35+
years of lithium experience
8,000+
resources professionals
1. Technology compatibility: navigating an emerging industry with nascent technologies
Every brine is unique. Concentrations, impurities, and extraction conditions vary. What works in one part of the world does’t immediately translate to the Smackover formations.
No single approach fits every brine – success in one region doesn’t guarantee success in another.
It isn’t just about making informed technology decisions. It’s knowing which technology fits the circumstance, addresses the business case, conforms to community expectations – and having the execution capability to deliver it through to nameplate production.
This is especially relevant as other U.S. regions – from geothermal brines in California to oilfield brines in Texas – explore similar pathways, each with distinct technical challenges and opportunities.
The longer-term opportunity is to build a sustainable, next-generation resources industry – one that will need application of emerging technologies, within a broader ecosystem to support ongoing innovation, circularity and talent development. Our extensive experience in integrating new and existing technologies, including DLE processes, enables us to optimize compatibility and efficiency.
“Our focus is making emerging technologies work at commercial scale. We’ve supported more than 200 lithium projects across brine, hard rock, and clay deposits – from feasibility studies to detailed design, construction, and operations,” explains Placer.
“For example, we’re currently the Lead Integration Delivery Partner for Rio Tinto’s Rincon Lithium Project in Argentina – designed to produce 50,000 tonnes per year of battery‑grade lithium carbonate, demonstrating how disciplined execution and alignment drive market growth.”
2. Ecosystem alignment: from resource to market
Lithium projects can’t be developed in isolation. Their success depends on alignment across the entire value chain – from subsurface extraction to downstream processing and offtake agreements.
Collaboration across the entire value chain is essential for lithium project success.
Arkansas’s lithium opportunity intersects with oil and gas expertise, mining and mineral expertise, existing infrastructure, and battery manufacturing ambitions. This mirrors similar dynamics in other U.S. regions, where legacy industries and infrastructure are being reimagined to support the lithium value chain. To capitalize on this, stakeholders must ensure that project deliverables are synchronized with downstream demand and integrated into the surrounding supply chain ecosystem to unlock long-term market integration.
“We help customers connect subsurface operations with offtake certainty to create value across the entire supply chain,” shares Placer.
“This creates partnership opportunities, and success depends on aligning project deliverables with offtake agreements so that downstream supply chains can function reliably. These organizations value proven first‑of‑a‑kind experience, disciplined technology selection, and long-term thinking.”
3. Funding and regulation: catalyzing industry momentum
Incentives play a critical role in unlocking early-stage investments and nurturing new industrial ecosystems to mature and vertically integrate. Lithium is no exception. Success in Arkansas will be predicated on effective, structured and decipherable state and federal funding mechanisms to de-risk early investment and accelerate project development.
“We have the opportunity to learn from challenges in Europe, where strong policy frameworks were undermined by weak execution on financial incentives,” says Ben Hughes Vice President, Commercial & Business Management.
“The U.S. is taking a different approach with a range of grants, loans, and tax incentives now available. For example, the US$225 million Standard Lithium grant represent the largest ever awarded to a us critical minerals project.”
But accessing these means navigating complex compliance frameworks and good advice.
“We recently helped several customers build compliance frameworks to pursue and execute when leveraging federal funding through Department of Energy grants, loans, and tax incentives (under the Inflation Reduction Act).”
Our familiarity with the U.S. federal, state, and local requirements ensure compliance while helping companies manage procurement, labor and costs, and pursue growth.
Ben Hughes
Vice President, Commercial and Business Management
“Our experience working on major energy transition projects in the U.S. accessing Grant, Loans, and Tax Incentives – continues to demonstrate how we integrate access to federal funding with regulatory compliance into a single pathway to project execution,” adds Hughes.
4. From ambition to delivery: project design to execution
Arkansas has attracted ambitious timelines and eager investors. But history shows that scaling new technologies is where many projects falter. Moving from feasibility studies to first production needs proven delivery capability and demands confronting the realities of economics and regulation.
“We need to address the elephant in the room: lithium prices,” says Placer. “Investors are increasingly focused on Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), and fluctuations in lithium prices have consistently been one of the top three reasons why projects in the U.S. struggle to advance. The other two significant factors include high capital costs associated to these projects, sources of funding and permitting challenges related to mining.”
These challenges underscore the importance of experience in taking new technologies from concept to commercial scale.
We’ve already seen the benefits of this coordinated approach through our work with Phillips 66 to reconfigure its San Francisco refinery to produce renewable transportation fuels from used cooking oils. Similar thinking will be needed to integrate lithium into U.S. energy supply chains.
As more regions across the U.S. pursue lithium development, the ability to replicate success across diverse geological and regulatory environments will be key to building a resilient national supply chain.
Building a resilient lithium industry
Arkansas has a strategic advantage: the opportunity to build a sustainable, fit-for-purpose lithium industry without the constraints of legacy infrastructure. By addressing technology compatibility, ecosystem alignment, execution capability, and financial viability, stakeholders can transform Arkansas’s lithium potential into a scalable, resilient industry.
And while Arkansas is a standout, it’s part of a growing network of U.S. lithium hubs – from Nevada’s active mines to California’s geothermal brines – each contributing to a broader vision of domestic energy security.
Success depends on working with partners who have both technology commercialization experience and full project delivery capability.
Few can offer both. We’ve built our reputation on taking first‑of‑a‑kind technologies from concept to operation – whether it’s pioneering bio-aromatics production in Belgium, developing sustainable mining operations in the UK, or enabling critical minerals extraction projects worldwide. This includes everything from upfront geoscience and permitting through to construction and long-term operations support.
This isn’t about isolated projects. It’s about building a regional ecosystem that supports innovation, investment, and long-term sustainability. And increasingly, it’s about connecting those regional ecosystems into a national framework that can meet the scale and urgency of the energy transition.
Our lithium experts
We’re helping customers turn opportunity into reality across the emerging U.S. lithium market.
LET’S DISCUSS HOW 
