Preliminary Exploration Lithium And Bromine Targets Arkansas Smackover Formation Leases

THE WOODLANDS, TX - TETRA Technologies, Inc. has a completed a preliminary technical assessment by an independent geological consulting firm to assess lithium and bromine exploration targets of the Company's approximately 31,100 net acres of brine leases in the Smackover Formation in Southwest Arkansas.  TETRA has rights to the brine, including rights to the bromine and lithium contained in the brine underlying this acreage, pursuant to certain brine leases and brine deeds with various landowners.  With respect to approximately 27,500 acres of that total acreage, TETRA had previously entered into an option agreement with Standard Lithium whereby Standard Lithium Ltd. has an option to acquire lithium rights.  Standard Lithium must make annual cash payments to TETRA to maintain the option to acquire the lithium rights. Pursuant to the option agreement, after Standard Lithium initiates commercial production, a royalty payment replaces the annual cash payments. The scope of the exploration target assessment is for bromine in all the approximately 31,100 net acres and lithium for the acreage where TETRA holds 100% of the lithium rights not subject to the option.  

For bromine, the technical assessment has identified a brine exploration target estimated to contain between 2.54 and 8.58 million tons of elemental bromine and for lithium the exploration target estimated to contain between 16,000 and 53,000 tons of elemental lithium. Using an elemental to Lithium Carbonate Equivalent ("LCE") conversion of 5.323, the lithium amounts to between 85,000 and 286,000 tons of LCE. The current market price of LCE is approximately $12,500 per ton(1), and the current market price of bromine is approximately $3,174 per ton(1) in the U.S. and $7,882 per ton(1) in China. The market price of lithium and bromine is volatile and may change materially in the future.  

Brady Murphy, President and CEO, said, “The Company has been focused on creating shareholder value by capitalizing on our key mineral assets, brine mineral extraction expertise, and deep chemistry competency to expand our offerings into the low carbon energy markets.  Bromine has been identified as a key mineral resource in zinc-bromide energy storage systems and our PureFlow™ high purity zinc bromide has been qualified by several battery technology companies. In recent weeks we received our first commercial order for PureFlow high purity zinc bromide and the forecast for PureFlow demand will require us to increase our future supply of bromine.  This exploration assessment is the first step for us to quantify the significant potential resource position we have in our Arkansas brine leases.  As we extract the bromine from our brine leases to service the oil and gas markets as well as the energy storage markets, we will have access to the lithium in the acreage where TETRA holds 100% of the lithium rights not subject to the Standard Lithium option.  The lithium battery market is already acknowledged to be a rapidly growing market, affording TETRA the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way.  In the coming periods we will assess the next steps towards developing these key minerals to augment our current global infrastructure and chemistry know-how allowing us to expand beyond the oil and gas market in which TETRA remains a significant market participant."