Item 2. Properties
Item 2. Properties.
Our facilities consist primarily of chemical plants, processing plants, distribution facilities and our corporate headquarters facility. 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, 2025.
Facilities
Completion Fluids & Products Segment
Our Completion Fluids & Products Segment 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 Segment owns or leases multiple service center facilities in the United States and in other countries. The Completion Fluids & Products Segment also leases several offices and numerous terminal locations in the United States and in other countries.
Water & Flowback Services Segment
The Water & Flowback Services Segment 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 Segment has leased facilities in certain countries in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.
Corporate
Our corporate headquarters is located in Spring, Texas, where we lease approximately 565,000 square feet under a lease that expires in 2039. See Note 7 - “Leases” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for further information related to our corporate headquarters. In addition, we own a 28,000 square foot technical facility in The Woodlands, Texas, to service the operations of our Completion Fluids & Products Segment and Water & Flowback Services Segment.
Mineral Resources
Our Completion Fluids & Products Segment leases approximately 40,000 gross acres of brine leases in Magnolia, Arkansas, which contain bromine, lithium, magnesium, manganese and other key minerals. 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
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this option contemplate a 2.5% royalty that Standard Lithium would pay us based on gross lithium revenues. Standard Lithium exercised this option to acquire lithium rights in the optioned acreage on October 6, 2023. Smackover Lithium (“SWA”), a joint venture between Standard Lithium and Equinor, an international energy company headquartered in Norway, is expected to reach first production with respect to this acreage in 2028.
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 for our Evergreen Brine Unit. Elemental bromine is a critical feedstock for our deepwater completion clear brine fluids and for battery storage electrolyte products. To meet the accelerating demand for certain bromine-based products, reduce reliance on third-party suppliers and gain access to a lower cost of supply, we continue to advance our bromine processing plant. In September 2025, we published an updated definitive feasibility study and updated our technical resources report with respect to bromine, lithium, magnesium, manganese and other key minerals from our Evergreen Brine Unit. During 2025, we completed Phase 1 of the bromine processing plant, including site preparation and installation of the bromine tower and began construction of the bromine structure. Phase 2 will include major infrastructure and equipment supporting the processing plant with mechanical completion projected by the end of 2027. The plant is expected to begin operation in early 2028 and will have the installed capacity to process up to 75 million pounds of elemental bromine per year.
We have also identified significant magnesium resources on our 40,000 acres in Arkansas. The United
States government has identified magnesium as a national security priority and a critical mineral feedstock for the defense, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing sectors. We are evaluating the potential development of our magnesium resources and the negotiation of a joint venture with respect to magnesium from TETRA’s brine leases. During the fourth quarter of 2025, we signed a term sheet to potentially form a joint venture with Magrathea to advance domestic magnesium metal production. The proposed joint venture will integrate our specialty chemical processing expertise and large-scale magnesium resource base with Magrathea’s proprietary electrolytic magnesium production technology which has been underwritten in part by United States Defense Production Act Title III funding.
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.
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The basis for the lithium, bromine and other mineral 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, lithium and other minerals from the brine underlying our acreage before the brine is reinjected back down into the subsurface aquifer but whether we will ultimately be able to economically remove the bromine, lithium and other minerals will depend on the outcome of further studies.
Any effort to pursue the extraction of lithium, bromine and other minerals from these brine leases would likely require a significant amount of time and capital, which may exceed current estimates. While we have advanced our bromine processing plant, we must also complete a FEED study and feasibility study for our acreage and validate the technologies used with respect to lithium and magnesium in order to be in a position to determine whether to proceed. While bromine can be commercially extracted, among other events that must take place before we can commercially produce lithium from our brine leases, the AOGC will need to establish an agreeable magnesium royalty with respect to our entire brine leased acreage and an agreeable lithium royalty for the Evergreen Brine Unit. Should any such decision be made to pursue the development of the lithium resources, 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 partners, Saltwerx and Magrathea . 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 lithium 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.