Volt Lithium, soon to become LibertyStream Infrastructure Partners pending shareholder approval, announced the upcoming final assembly and deployment of its proprietary mobile Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) unit in North Dakota’s Bakken region, with commissioning scheduled for the second half of June 2025.

This initiative, in collaboration with Wellspring Hydro, is supported by a combined US$2.5-million in funding facilitated through the North Dakota Industrial Commission’s Clean Sustainable Energy Authority and Renewable Energy Program.

Volt’s proprietary operating system has been built to partner with existing salt-water disposal (SWD) operators in oilfields across the US and the company’s proprietary extraction compound is tailored to extract lithium from oilfield brines. This partnership model reduces capital and operating costs compared to developing a traditional greenfield lithium extraction facility.

With the Bakken field unit, Volt aims to demonstrate that its proprietary, modular DLE process can capture value across both high‑volume, lower‑grade brines and higher‑concentration resources—showcasing basin‑agnostic versatility and the potential for improved project economics in multiple North American basins.

Volt Lithium now has footholds in North America’s two most prolific onshore oil-producing basins: the Permian in Texas and New Mexico, and the Bakken in North Dakota. Together, these basins represent more than 60% of total US onshore oil output, providing significant opportunities for lithium extraction from extensive lithium-rich produced water volumes.

The Permian Basin alone generates approximately 19 million barrels per day of produced water at lithium concentrations averaging around 30 ppm, translating to a conservative 170,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of potential LCE.

The Williston Basin Bakken production ranges from 1.6 million to 2 million barrels of produced water per day. Internal lab tests on Bakken brine samples show lithium concentrations reaching 90 ppm—nearly three times Permian grades, suggesting potential production of ~50 000 tpa LCE.

Volt is building an inventory of lithium chloride from its Permian Basin operations and has initiated converting this inventory into lithium carbonate, achieving purity levels suitable for premium-specification offtake agreements. Samples are being distributed to potential offtake partners to facilitate commercial partnerships and validate product specifications.

In September 2024, Volt deployed its first DLE field unit in the Permian Basin, subsequently scaling up to its Generation 5 unit by February 2025. This rapid scaling resulted in what the company says is North America’s largest operational DLE system, capable of processing more than 10,000 barrels per day of produced water.

The upcoming Bakken mobile deployment represents further lateral expansion, validating the modular technology’s adaptability across basins and showcasing its potential for rapid replication and scaling.