Aramco joins Adnoc in lithium extraction

According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates' national oil companies plan to extract lithium from brine in their oilfields, in line with efforts to diversify their economies and profit from the shift to electric vehicles (EVs).

Other oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, opens new tab and Occidental Petroleum, opens new tab, plan to take advantage of emerging technologies to filter lithium from brine, as the world seeks to move away from fossil fuels.

Saudi Arabian economy for decades has relied on oil, is spending billions on trying to turn itself into a hub for EVs as part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's attempts to find alternative sources of wealth.

Saudi Aramco opens new tab and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company were in the very early stages of work to extract lithium, regarded as a critical mineral by many major economies because of its use in battery manufacture.

DLE technology is in its infancy and its economics are far less certain than those of oil.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE can draw on expertise in handling oil brine and wastewater at oil production sites.

An advantage of filtering the ultra-light battery metal from salt water is that it avoids the need for costly and environmentally challenging open pit mines or large evaporation ponds, as employed in the world's leading producers Australia and Chile.

China is the biggest processor and consumer of lithium, needed for electric and hybrid vehicles.

               

Chad nationalizes assets owned by Exxon Mobil

Chad has nationalized all the assets and rights including hydrocarbon permits and exploration and production authorizations that belonged to a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, the Central African nation's energy and hydrocarbons ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Exxon Mobil said in December 2022 that it had closed the sale of its operations Chad and Cameroon to London-listed Savannah Energy in a US$407 million deal, but the Chadian government contested the agreement, saying the final terms were different from what Exxon Mobil had presented.

It warned that it may ask courts to block Savannah's purchase of Exxon's assets in the country and take further steps to protect its interests.

Exxon's assets included a 40% stake in Chad's Doba oil project, which comprises seven producing oilfields with combined output of 28,000 barrels per day (bpd).

It also included Exxon's interest in the more than 1,000 kilometre (621 mile) Chad/Cameroon pipeline from the landlocked nation to the Atlantic Gulf of Guinea coast through which its crude is exported.