Empire Metals Corp.’s is a Canadian mining company evaluating the Fox Creek area for the potential to extract lithium and associated dissolved elements of interest from saline brines that are currently being extracted as a waste product from oil and gas wells from the aquifer underlying the project.
Empire’s Fox Creek Property is in west-central Alberta and includes four Alberta Brine Hosted Mineral Licenses, totaling 9,632 ha. The Property is 35 kilometers southeast of the town of Fox Creek, and 210 km northwest of the City of Edmonton and features
Historic exploration on the Property, and in the Fox Creek area, has been focused on oil and gas exploration targeting the underlying Beaverhill Lake aquifer. Channel Resources initiated exploration of the aquifer in 2009, with multiple wells beginning operation on the footprint of the Fox Creek Project.
The oil and gas wells on the Project provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the possibility of recovering valuable lithium brines from the currently produced waste material from the oil recovery process. The Lithium brine reservoirs are accumulations of oil and gas mixed with saline ground waters enriched in dissolved lithium that occur in a closed basin in arid regions. The brine is pumped to the surface where the lithium rich brine can be separated and processed through progressive evaporation ponds that yield a series of greater concentrations of Lithium. The best known North American deposit for this type of lithium brine concentration is in Clayton Valley, Nevada.
