Item 2. Properties
Item 2. Properties.
Our facilities consist primarily of our corporate headquarters facility, chemical plants, processing plants and distribution facilities. We believe our facilities are adequate for our present needs. We also hold brine leases on acreage which contains bromine and lithium. The following information describes facilities that we (i) leased or owned and (ii) leased acreage as of December 31, 2024.
Facilities
Completion Fluids & Products Division
Our Completion Fluids & Products Division facilities include six operating chemical production plants located in the states of Arkansas, California, Louisiana, and West Virginia, and the country of Finland, having a total production capacity of more than 1.1 million equivalent liquid tons per year. The two California locations consist of 29 square miles of leased mineral acreage and solar evaporation ponds, and related owned production and storage facilities. Our facilities also include a fluids plant in Brazil serving deepwater and ultra-deepwater operations in the South Atlantic. The facility provides engineering, testing, blending, filtration, and storage for the full line of TETRA fluids, including clear-brine and zinc-free/formate-free fluids, as well as chemical additives.
In addition to the production facilities described above, the Completion Fluids & Products Division owns or leases multiple service center facilities in the United States and in other countries. The Completion Fluids & Products Division also leases several offices and numerous terminal locations in the United States and in other countries.
Water & Flowback Services Division
The Water & Flowback Services Division conducts its operations through production testing and water management service centers (most of which are leased) in the United States, located in Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas. In addition, the Water & Flowback Services Division has leased facilities in certain countries in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.
Corporate
Our headquarters is located in The Woodlands, Texas, in a 153,000 square foot office building, which is located on 2.6 acres of land, under a lease that expires in 2027. In addition, we own a 28,000 square foot technical facility in The Woodlands, Texas, to service our Completion Fluids & Products and Water & Flowback Services Divisions’ operations.
Bromine and Lithium Resources
Our Completion Fluids & Products Division leases approximately 40,000 gross acres of brine leases in Magnolia, Arkansas, which contain bromine and lithium. This acreage is leased for possible future development and as a source of supply for our bromine and other raw materials. We have 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 35,000 gross acres of that total acreage, we had previously entered into an agreement granting Standard Lithium an option to acquire the lithium rights in that acreage located outside of the Evergreen Brine Unit. The agreements governing this option contemplate a 2.5% royalty that
26
Standard Lithium would pay us based on gross lithium revenues. Standard Lithium delivered a notice to exercise this option to acquire lithium rights in the optioned acreage on October 6, 2023.
Since acquiring this acreage, we have engaged in various exploratory activities with respect to our brine leases. In 2024, we continued to follow up on prior exploration work regarding bromine and lithium materials that may be present in our approximately 40,000 gross acres of brine leases in the Smackover Formation in Southwest Arkansas. Building on an earlier maiden inferred bromine and brine resource estimation report from the third quarter of 2022 for this area, we completed a report for our Evergreen Brine Unit in Arkansas in January 2024 that identified proven and probable bromine reserves, and both “measured,” and “indicated” and “inferred” resources of bromine and lithium. Later, in August 2024, we announced the completion of a definitive feasibility study and an updated technical resources report (the “Resources Report”) for our Evergreen Brine Unit. The Resources Report updated the amounts previously reported in our January report issued in 2024 and incorporates the results of the definitive feasibility study, including bromine reserve determinations. The Company is continuing to evaluate these assets and has not made any final decisions about whether to proceed to development stages but is instead still focusing on sampling and analysis and the consideration of the financial implications of proceeding to commence operations to produce these materials.
In June 2023, we entered into the MOU with Saltwerx, LLC, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corporation, relating to a newly-proposed brine unit in the Smackover Formation in Southwest Arkansas (the “Evergreen Brine Unit”) and potential bromine and lithium production from brine produced from the unit. We filed an amended unit application with the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission (“AOGC”) covering approximately 6,138 acres, which combines brine acreage that is leased by each of TETRA and Saltwerx. On September 26, 2023, the AOGC held a public hearing and unanimously approved our application to establish the Evergreen Brine Unit. On October 17, 2023, the AOGC issued formal orders establishing the Evergreen Brine Unit and integrating all unleased owners within the Evergreen Brine Unit, subject to a 60-day statutory election period for each unleased party to elect whether or not to participate and share in costs of development of the Evergreen Brine Unit. The 60-day statutory election period expired on December 16, 2023 and such unleased parties were deemed integrated within the Evergreen Brine Unit as described in the formal orders. While bromine can be commercially extracted, among other events that must take place before we can commercially produce lithium from the Evergreen Brine Unit, the AOGC will need to establish an agreeable lithium royalty.
The MOU with Saltwerx includes provisions relating to: (i) initial brine ownership percentages within the Evergreen Brine Unit, including the bromine and lithium contained in the brine, (ii) the transfer of certain leased acres outside the proposed Evergreen Brine Unit from us to Saltwerx, (iii) reimbursement by Saltwerx of certain expenses that we incurred for the development of leased acreage to be included in the Evergreen Brine Unit, and (iv) an allocation of certain future costs for the drilling of a brine production test well and other development operations, including front-end engineering and design studies for bromine and lithium production facilities. Unless and until we finalize any contractual agreements with Saltwerx, including a joint venture agreement, our relationship with Saltwerx will be governed by the MOU and the Unit Operating Agreement and there can be no assurance that we will agree to terms beyond those of the MOU and the Unit Operating Agreement.
The basis for the lithium and bromine resources is that hypersaline formation water, or brine, associated with some of the world’s oilfields and/or geothermal fields contains confined reservoirs, or aquifers, that are known to contain anomalous concentrations of lithium, bromine and other elements of interest. We propose to assess stratigraphically deep (more than 2,250 meters or 7,450 feet below surface) brine from oil and gas aquifers associated with the Late Jurassic Smackover Formation. The brine is currently pumped from the aquifer to the earth’s surface as a wastewater product associated with hydrocarbon production (e.g., oil, gas, and condensate). We expect that we will be able to develop or utilize evolving commercial technologies to economically remove the bromine and lithium from the brine underlying our acreage before the brine is reinjected back down into the
27
subsurface aquifer but whether we will ultimately be able to economically remove the bromine and lithium materials will depend on the outcome of further studies.
Any effort to pursue the extraction of lithium and bromine from these brine leases would likely require a significant amount of time and capital, which may exceed current estimates. While we have completed a definitive feasibility study with respect to bromine and an updated technical resources report for our Evergreen Brine Unit, we must also complete a lithium FEED study and a feasibility study for our lithium acreage and validate the lithium technologies used in order to be in a position to determine whether to proceed. Should any such decision be made to pursue the development of either one or both of these materials, it would also be necessary to obtain permits for our extraction activities which could be subject to delays or onerous conditions, as well as finalize any contractual agreements with our potential joint venture partner, Saltwerx . Long term, we believe that lithium prices will rebound to levels that support increased investment in supply, especially from the United States, and we and our Evergreen Unit partner remain focused on completing all the engineering studies required to define the lithium project economics. Once these studies are completed, any future investments in our lithium initiatives will be evaluated at that time and subject to reaching agreement with our Evergreen Unit partner.