LithiumBank Resources Corp. is developing projects for lithium brine extraction in Western Canada. The company approached SLB to help update resource estimates for its Boardwalk Project and develop a higher-confidence subsurface model by incorporating lithium concentration and formation lithology data recently acquired from extending an existing oil well and drilling a fresh interval through the Leduc and Swan Hills Formations.
The initial phase of work involved construction of a static model and resource estimation, using available data from oil wells drilled through the Leduc and Swan Hills Formations. The SLB workflow included petrophysical and geophysical analysis and reservoir characterization, including facies analysis, updated porosity and permeability modeling, and interpretation and inversion of 67 km of 2D seismic data.
Once new data—lithium concentration samples and logs from the reentry well—became available, the second phase began with updating the subsurface model. Petrel™ subsurface software modeling was used to re-estimate resources and classify them via sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, including connectivity estimates. These connectivity calculations provided a preliminary assessment of the model's dynamic behavior, providing insights not only into the porosity distribution but also into pore connectivity and its impact on resource estimation. All these steps were crucial in increasing confidence in the updated estimates and enabled reclassifying a significant amount of Leduc Formation resources from “inferred” to “measured” and “indicated.”
The rigorous and comprehensive analysis resulted in a robust resource estimate that is 30% greater than previous calculations and provided LithiumBank with the confidence to advance its project. The reservoir model will also support the planning of well networks and locations in upcoming economic and engineering studies.
