So what you are saying is that the waste water is actually becoming more valuable than the oil.
An “oil” well is really a contaminated salt water well. On average in the Permian basin it’s a 6 bbl of salt water to 1 bbl of oil equivalent yield from a shale well. I have seen as high as 110 to one for wells in water flooding or that breached a fault line and never once below 2 salt water to one oil. Meaning I have never seen a well produce more oil than water it just doesn’t happen in the Permian. At current lithium prices yes there would be times the lithium would be a significant income source for the land owners at current market price of $13 kg for lithium hydroxide.
A typical EV has 10 kg of lithium in it. A typical Permian well will have comparable levels to the Barnett shale so 2000kg a week of available lithium at $13 a kg that’s 104,000 a month in lithium sales. Which the landowners are currently throwing down a salt water disposal well paying $1 to 50 cents a bbl for the services.
While shale wells come in at 1200 to 2400 bbl per day they only do that for the first 180 days or the IP180 they stable out at 300 to 400 bbl oil per day for the next few years. So monthly avg at $45 a big is $405,000 so the lithium is one quarter of the total value and it’s being thrown away right now. I have land owners clamoring for the UT tech which is in limited production as we speak.