News and Events
NeoLithica Announces Private Equity Raise to Fuel Growth
NeoLithica, a developer of critical lithium mineral carbonate derived from formation brine, is pleased to announce it is conducting a private equity raise of up to $10 million. The funds will be used to expand operations, accelerate product development, and build out our team as we advance the Peace River Lithium Project toward pilot-scale demonstration. We're grateful for the continued interest from investors who share our view of Alberta's role in North America's critical minerals future.
NeoLithica, a developer of critical lithium mineral carbonate derived from formation brine, is pleased to announce it is conducting a private equity raise with the funds to be used to expand operations, accelerate product development, and build out our team as we advance the Peace River Lithium Project towards pre-commercial DLE demonstration pilots in 2027. We're grateful for the continued interest from investors who share our view of Alberta's role in supporting Canada’s and North America's critical minerals supply chain.
Interested investors may contact NeoLithica directly at info@neolithica or through the contact form on our website.
Lithium Prices Climb as the Market Tightens
After a prolonged downturn, lithium prices have turned a corner. Battery-grade lithium carbonate climbed from roughly US$8 per kilogram in May 2025 to more than US$25 per kilogram by May 2026, as demand outpaced new supply coming online. Fastmarkets and BMI both project the global lithium market will move into a supply deficit in 2026 — estimates range from roughly 22,000 to 80,000 tonnes — with elevated prices expected to persist through 2027 as the market works to attract the investment needed for the next wave of production.
Price cycles in lithium have been sharp in both directions before, and we don't treat any single forecast as certain. But a market moving from oversupply toward deficit is the environment in which new, de-risked, capital-efficient production — the kind NeoLithica is designed to deliver — is best positioned to compete.
Source: "Q1 2026 Lithium Market: Prices Double Amid Supply Strain"
The Battery Buildout Behind Lithium Demand
It's easy to talk about lithium demand in the abstract. The gigafactory buildout underway right now makes it concrete: more than 30 battery cell and pack production facilities are under construction or in advanced planning across the United States and Canada, with total operating capacity expected to reach 800 to 1,000 gigawatt-hours by 2030 — up from roughly 120 gigawatt-hours in 2025. Tesla, Panasonic, and LG Energy Solution are among the companies expanding North American production to keep pace.
Every one of those facilities needs a reliable, growing supply of battery-grade lithium, and the automakers behind them have made public commitments to electrify a majority of their fleets by 2030. That's the demand side of NeoLithica's investment thesis in a single number: an eight-fold increase in North American battery capacity over five years, all of it needing lithium from somewhere.
Source: "Automotive Battery Market Accelerates as Global EV Adoption Powers Gigafactory Expansion"
Canada Deepens Critical Minerals Cooperation with South Korea and Japan
Canada's critical minerals diplomacy kept pace with its domestic policy this year. In June, Canada and the Republic of Korea agreed to develop a joint plan for critical minerals stockpiling by the end of 2026, building on an existing memorandum of understanding covering critical mineral supply chains, clean energy transition, and energy security. Around the same time, Canada and Japan advanced their own critical minerals partnership, anchored by more than CAD $1 billion in signed commercial agreements and active discussions on offtake agreements and joint mining ventures. Canada has now established critical minerals collaboration frameworks with the UK, the EU, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Chile, and Argentina.
These agreements are a reminder of who NeoLithica's eventual customers are likely to be: battery and automotive economies that have made clear, public commitments to sourcing lithium outside of concentrated, geopolitically exposed supply chains. As Alberta's brine-hosted lithium resource moves toward commercial production, this is the demand signal it's moving toward.
Source: "Canada and the Republic of Korea deepen co-operation on energy resources and critical minerals"
Alberta Confirms a Nearly $1 Trillion Lithium Resource
The Alberta Geological Survey put a number on something the oil and gas industry has known for decades: there's a lot of lithium dissolved in the brine beneath this province. The survey estimated Alberta holds 82.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent — potentially the third-largest lithium resource in the world — with a theoretical value approaching US$1 trillion if it can be produced economically using direct lithium extraction.
That last qualifier is the whole story. As E3 Lithium's CEO Chris Doornbos told BNN Bloomberg, "you never get 100 per cent" of a resource like this out of the ground, and the number is theoretical until DLE is proven at commercial scale. That's precisely the gap NeoLithica's Peace River Lithium Project is built to close: our own 10-million-tonne inferred resource sits within this same provincial resource base, and our DLE pilot testing — including results from Geo40 and CANDLE Lithium — is aimed at proving exactly the kind of commercial viability the province's number depends on.
The bigger picture matters too: with G7 countries pushing hard for lithium supply outside China, and Canada still a net importer of the lithium it needs, Alberta's brine resource is no longer a curiosity — it's a supply chain question with a dollar figure attached.
Source: "Alberta says it's sitting on a potential US$1 trillion lithium resource"
Alberta Unveils New Critical Minerals Incentive Program
At the PDAC 2026 Convention, Alberta's Minister of Energy and Minerals, Brian Jean, announced plans for a new incentive program aimed at attracting investment into the province's critical minerals sector, targeted for launch in 2027. The program builds on Alberta's Minerals Strategy and Action Plan and aligns with a newly signed Western Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, joining several provinces and territories in positioning the region as a global supplier of responsibly sourced critical minerals.
For a company like NeoLithica, developing brine-hosted lithium tenure entirely within Alberta, this kind of policy signal matters as much as any single grant. Predictable, investment-friendly rules are what allow projects like Peace River to move from resource definition to commercial development on a reasonable timeline — and it's encouraging to see the province treating critical minerals as a genuine economic priority in its energy sector.
Ottawa Commits Over $3.6 Billion to Critical Minerals
The federal government used this year's PDAC Convention to make its largest critical minerals funding push to date. The Honourable Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, announced more than $3.6 billion in new programs, including a new First and Last Mile Fund carrying $1.5 billion to support infrastructure for mining regions, and a forthcoming $2-billion Critical Minerals Sovereign Fund — a first-of-its-kind vehicle for federal equity investment, loan guarantees, and supply agreements across the critical minerals value chain, expected to launch this spring. The government also launched a new Mine Permit Navigator tool intended to help project proponents move through federal approvals faster, as Canada shifts toward a "one project, one review" permitting model.
Minister Hodgson's framing was direct: "Canada has the minerals the world wants, and we are acting with speed, scale and purpose to get them from deposit to market." Lithium is explicitly named among the priority minerals these programs are designed to support.
None of this changes NeoLithica's plans on its own — but it's a meaningful shift in the environment we're developing in. A federal government actively building financing tools and faster permitting pathways for critical minerals projects is exactly the kind of backdrop that makes a project like Peace River easier to finance and build.
Source: "Government of Canada invests to unlock Canada's critical minerals advantage"
ExxonMobil and Chevron Enter Lithium DLE
ExxonMobil and Chevron are both developing direct lithium extraction projects on the Smackover Formation, pumping lithium-rich brine from underground and using DLE to strip out the metal — the same basic approach NeoLithica is applying to Alberta's Leduc Formation.
When two of the world's largest oil companies commit real capital to extracting lithium from oilfield brine using DLE, it's a strong signal that this isn't a niche approach — it's a legitimate, scalable path to critical mineral production that plays directly to the expertise oil and gas companies (and the people who've worked in that industry) already have. That's the same logic behind NeoLithica's approach to Alberta's Peace River and Redwater oilfield lithium-brine projects.
Source: "U.S. Oil Giants' Billion-Dollar Lithium Investment Set to Transform Arkansas's Smackover Formation"
NeoLithica Announces Testing Results from DLE Pilot
Encouraging needs to be met locally.
NeoLithica is pleased to share the results of its testing of brine sourced from its Peace River Project in northwestern Alberta, Canada. NeoLithica entered into a Pilot Test Agreement with Geo40, LLC (Geo40) in January 2025 to demonstrate their Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology.
NeoLithica transported 6,000 litres of lithium-bearing oilfield brine collected from a third-party well at its 10 million tonne lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) Peace River Project to Geo40’s pilot site in Estevan, Saskatchewan. Upon completion, Geo40 delivered a Pilot Report on the pilot test, which included preliminary operating expense (OPEX) estimates based on the test campaign results.
Geo40’s technology demonstrated its ability to effectively extract lithium from NeoLithica’s Peace River brine, showcasing the effectiveness of its brine pre-treatment regime, DLE technology, and the interface between the two. The brine samples were treated using Geo40’s proprietary brine pre-treatment process before being processed through the pilot plant for lithium extraction.
When testing new brine chemistries, Geo40 typically conducts significant optimization to achieve pilot results that align with its expected piloting program outcomes. As anticipated, this was the case with the Peace River brine. A key efficiency and cost driver was achieved by optimizing Geo40’s brine pre-treatment process and determining the optimal interface with the DLE pilot unit to maximize Geosieve’s effectiveness. This resulted in a lithium chloride eluate averaging 749 mg/L lithium, a 13-fold increase from the initial brine concentration of 57 mg/L, and consistently high lithium recoveries averaging 97%. Geo40 anticipates that further process optimizations could ultimately lead to an eluate with a lithium concentration of up to 3,000 mg/L.
At the end of the trial, a small volume of lithium-rich liquor or eluate, in the form of lithium chloride (LiCl), was shipped to Geo40’s lab for further evaluations. A small sample of battery-grade lithium carbonate was then produced from the eluate. The purity of the sample was measured internally by ICP-OES to compare it to typical industry specifications for battery-grade product. The NeoLithica sample exhibited >99% purity. A sample of the eluate and lithium carbonate was then shipped to NeoLithica in Calgary.
The lithium chloride and lithium carbonate chemistry will be made available to potential customers for qualification test work for battery applications. This step is crucial in attracting industry participation and securing potential off-take agreements with global companies seeking sustainable supplies of lithium compounds to meet their demand.
NeoLithica Announces Redwater DLE Pilot Test Results
Achieving a net zero carbon footprint.
We're pleased to share the results of bench-scale Direct Lithium Extraction testing conducted by CANDLE Lithium Corporation on Leduc Formation brine from our Redwater Lithium Project.
CANDLE, an Edmonton-based DLE technology developer, tested its proprietary sorbent across both semi-batch and continuous operating modes. At an optimized brine pH of 8, semi-batch testing achieved cumulative lithium extraction of 100% after three passes through the sorbent column. In continuous mode — the configuration more representative of how a commercial plant would actually run — the process extracted 95.6% of the lithium from a 40-litre brine sample, concentrating it from 22 mg/L to 1,261 mg/L, a 57-fold increase. Lithium selectivity over competing ions was strong and improved with scale, and critically, the sorbent showed no degradation in performance despite the hydrogen sulphide and organics naturally present in Redwater's oilfield brine — a real-world condition that isn't present in the synthetic brines many DLE technologies are first tested against.
This matters for a simple reason: Redwater and Peace River are chemically distinct brine sources, and having independent technology providers demonstrate high-recovery extraction on NeoLithica’s brine — not a generic analog — is exactly the kind of third-party technical validation that de-risks NeoLithica's broader DLE strategy. It also reinforces why Redwater, sitting on an already-producing oil pool with existing brine-handling infrastructure, remains one of our fastest potential paths to a working DLE pre-commercial demonstration.
This round of testing is a precursor phase. NeoLithica plans to extended testing at higher flow rates at pre-commercial pilot scale, which will allow it to begin refining the capital and operating cost estimates this initial bench-scale work wasn't designed to produce. We'll share those results as they become available.