The Smackover Formation, spanning Southwest Arkansas and East Texas, is one of North America’s most promising lithium brine basins.

With lithium prices currently at a low point — even as global demand continues to surge — industry leaders and new market entrants are seizing the opportunity to strategically acquire lithium assets. This environment has intensified the race to secure reliable resources in the Smackover, making it more important than ever for companies to base their acquisitions on robust, data-driven insights.

Targeted insights for the Smackover

SLB has recently introduced a new Smackover 3D five-layer model that helps lithium asset developers zero in on lithium-rich zones with a high level of accuracy and prioritize acreage based on lithium tonnage, flow potential and rock properties.

Why it matters

“Our Smackover 3D five-layer model combines advanced geoscience, data analytics, and basin modeling to help developers make confident decisions faster in the race to meet global lithium demand,” said Nicholas Lugansky, Head of Mining at SLB. “By applying proven technologies to emerging energy systems, we’re enabling a more efficient and targeted approach to lithium project development — one that’s built on precision, not speculation.”

The Smackover 3D five-layer model integrates structural, hydrodynamic and geochemical data across five key layers: sweet spot map, basement map, lineament map, hydrodynamics map, and Lithium Quality Index (LQI) map. This layered approach delivers tailored, high-resolution subsurface insights to guide smarter exploration and development decisions.

Tell me more

Last year, SLB launched its Smackover Play report, which helps identify sweet spots with the highest lithium metric tons per acre. Building on this, the Smackover 3D five-layer model expands these capabilities by offering a deeper understanding of the basin’s lithium brine characteristics, while also enabling companies to quickly receive localized insights tailored to their zones of interest — delivered with a fast turnaround time.

The Smackover services are part of SLB’s broader lithium brine resource modeling portfolio, which integrates multidisciplinary data to deliver a comprehensive understanding of subsurface resource potential. The SLB advanced 3D models incorporate a wide range of data — geophysical, geological, lithology, porosity, temperature, geochemical — to help build a more holistic view of resource potential, formation deliverability, and reinjection strategy. By mapping lithium concentration variances and identifying zones with higher permeability, this approach helps better understand the economic potential of a lithium brine resource.