Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
MGX Minerals Inc has announced the acquisition of Lisbon Valley petro lithium project located in the Paradox Basin, Utah.
It said the project includes 888 placer mineral claims inclusive of lithium brine mineral rights covering the majority of the Lisbon Valley oil and gas field, where historic lithium brine content has been reported as high as 730 parts per million lithium (Superior Oil 88-21P).
“This recent acquisition in the Paradox Basin is strategic for MGX. These claims cover the majority of the Lisbon Oilfield placing MGX as a major player in oilfield lithium brine in the United States,” stated MGX Chairman Marc Bruner.
The Lisbon Valley oil and gas field is located approximately 40 miles southeast of Moab, Utah in the salt anticline belt on the southwest edge of the Paradox Basin in San Juan county.
The oilfield was first discovered by Pure Oil Company in 1960. The Lisbon field produces oil and gas from the southwest flank of a faulted anticlinal trap in the Devonian sandstones and Mississippian limestones.
The Paradox Basin covers large parts of San Juan, Garfield, Wayne, Emery, and Grand Counties in south eastern Utah.
The Basin was a structural and depositional trough associated with the Pennsylvanian-age Ancestral Rocky Mountains. The subsiding basin developed a shallow-water carbonate shelf that locally contained carbonate build ups along its south and southwest margins.
The region is home to the former Rio Algom uranium mill facility, an active copper mine operated by Lisbon Valley Mining Company, and a natural gas processing plant located in the city of Lisbon, Utah.
As previously announced, MGX and engineering partner PurLucid Treatment Solutions have successfully extracted lithium from oil sands wastewater.
The company and PurLucid are now preparing for deployment of the pilot plant shortly with commercial scale deployment expected during the second half of 2017.
The pilot plant unit represents fully integrated technology combining MGX’s patent pending lithium extraction process, which potentially reduces recovery times of lithium and other valuable minerals from 18 months to one day when compared with conventional lithium extraction, with PurLucid’s patented water purification technology, which removes particulate and dissolved material including dissolved and emulsified oil, colloids and heavy metals.
Results from pilot plant optimization testing will be released shortly as part of the completion of the pilot plant. Lithium carbonate has been extracted from oil well production waste water at the Company’s flagship Sturgeon Lake property. Results are currently under technical review and are expected to be released when ready.
