They have the perfect climate for the production of lithium from brines. Having worked in the Kingdom I can tell you as a professional geologist their flow back crimes are absolutely loaded with lithium and magnesium. As much or more than what is present in the Permian basin another of my multidecade basins of experience. One of my alma mater has tech that is already commercialized I have used it in the Permian as recent as 2020. Look at the amounts of one well. Then realize there are over 100,000 active wells in the Permian and at least that number in the Kingdom the world is swimming in lithium it’s how to get it out of the salts and UT solved that issue years ago. Cost is on parade of mined Li and with large scale flow back production will rapidly drop well.below purposely mined lithium.
“Produced water from shale gas fields in Texas is rich in lithium. Advanced separation materials concepts such as ours could potentially turn this waste stream into a resource recovery opportunity,” Freeman said.
Each well in the Barnett and Eagle Ford can generate up to 300,000 gallons of produced water per week. Using their new process, Freeman and his team conservatively estimate that from just one week’s worth of produced water, enough lithium can be recovered to power 200 electric cars or 1.6 million smartphones.
https://news.utexas.edu/2018/02/09/new-lithium-collection-method-could-boost-global-supply/
So what you are saying is that the waste water is actually becoming more valuable than the oil.