US-based EnergyX has secured a buyer for 100,000 tons of lithium products extracted from brine over 10 years. The binding long-term offtake agreement, announced by commodities trader Trafigura on October 12, 2026, covers two projects under development in Chile and Texas. It is the first purchase agreement EnergyX has announced for its proprietary direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology, "GET-Lit," and it gives the company a foothold for raising money to build commercial facilities. But 100,000 tons is a future purchase volume. What the pilot plant already in operation has actually confirmed, and what remains before mass production, needs to be assessed separately.
What securing a buyer for 100,000 tons means
According to Trafigura's announcement, Trafigura will buy lithium carbonate from Project Black Giant in Chile and lithium hydroxide from Project Lonestar in Texas. Both are battery-grade products; the contract is not for 100,000 tons of elemental lithium metal. The targets for starting commercial-scale production differ: 2028 for Black Giant and 2029 for Lonestar.
EnergyX describes revenue over the contract term as exceeding $2 billion. That figure is based on a market price of about $20,000 per ton at the time of the announcement. Multiplying 100,000 tons by $20,000 gives $2 billion, but it should not be read as fixed income or confirmed profit. The company's announcement does not give detailed contract terms such as the pricing formula.
Still, having a long-term buyer matters. If a company can lock in customers before building a plant, lenders and investors have something to use in evaluating future revenue. EnergyX founder and CEO Teague Egan said in the announcement:
"Long-term offtake agreements are among the most important steps in moving a lithium project from development to production."
The letter of interest EnergyX received from the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) for a $690 million loan for Black Giant also belongs to this financing context. A letter of interest does not mean the loan has been disbursed, and signing a sales contract does not mean construction is complete. The progress here is that one of the conditions for attracting the funds needed to scale up the facilities is now in place.
Combining adsorption, solvents and membranes to make battery materials
GET-Lit is not a method that simply filters brine through a single membrane. In EnergyX's technical explanation, it is a group of technologies that combines sorbents, solvents and membranes to handle everything from lithium separation to purification. The raw material, brine, is water containing high concentrations of salts. Extracting lithium from it and finishing it into a product battery makers can use are separate operations, each with its own role.
In the adsorption step, a granular material selectively takes up lithium, which is then released using water. Solvent extraction uses dedicated reagents to advance purification and concentration. The company also describes using membranes to separate lithium from impurities and to convert lithium chloride into lithium hydroxide. The idea is to link the stage of collecting the target component with the stage of finishing it in the required chemical form.
Understanding this combination also shows why a single metric such as extraction rate cannot evaluate the whole system. Even if a large share of the lithium is recovered from the feedstock, it must still be confirmed that subsequent purification meets quality requirements and that the product can be supplied. What the contract specifies is precisely finished battery materials: lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.
However, the published description of the technology group does not allow us to conclude that the Chilean and Texan facilities will run on the same process configuration. The company's explanation of how the steps fit together should be read separately from performance measured on specific feedstocks and operating conditions.
What do "100,000 tons" and "250 tons a year" actually count?
At Lonestar, a pilot plant processing brine from the Smackover formation in Texas is in operation. The body of EnergyX's 2026 startup announcement describes the production scale of the demonstration plant, which uses industrial-grade equipment, as "approximately 250 metric tons per year, lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE)." This is not a record of what has already been produced in a year; it is an annual production scale stated by the company.
The 100,000 tons in the offtake agreement is a 10-year volume covering multiple lithium products. It differs in both time period and mass basis from the Lonestar pilot plant's 250 tons a year (LCE), so dividing one by the other does not give a scale-up factor.
| Figure or date | Subject | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|
| 100,000 tons over 10 years | Lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide supplied from two sites | Contracted volume of products to be purchased in the future |
| About 250 tons per year, LCE | Lonestar pilot plant | Annual production scale converted to lithium carbonate mass |
| 2028 | Black Giant | Target for starting commercial-scale production |
| 2029 | Lonestar | Target for starting commercial-scale production |
The table separates the contract, plant capacity and future targets, drawing on Trafigura's October 12 contract announcement and EnergyX's pilot plant announcement. LCE is a conversion value that expresses the amount of lithium contained in terms of the mass of lithium carbonate, and it is different from the weight of the products actually shipped. Without a breakdown by product and the conversion conditions, 100,000 tons cannot be compared with LCE plant capacity.
Note that the Lonestar startup announcement also describes the 250 tons a year as "lithium hydroxide" in its opening bullet points. The table uses LCE, which the body text states explicitly. Because the substance basis is not consistent even within the same announcement, a precise scale-up multiple should not be derived from this figure.
From demonstration to continuous supply: what remains to be verified
EnergyX says the Lonestar pilot plant will supply 5 to 25 tons of battery-grade lithium samples for customer evaluation. The significance is in moving from testing separation in a laboratory to processing actual brine in industrial equipment and having customers evaluate the product. The 5 to 25 tons refers to the amount of samples handed to customers.
The basis for the contract and pilot plant is company press releases, not a peer-reviewed paper or preprint. The number of test runs, brine throughput and continuous operating period were not disclosed in the startup announcement. There is also no list of measured impurities in the product and no mention of independent replication, so it is hard to judge from this announcement under what conditions reproducibility was confirmed.
For that reason, the company's announcement that the plant has started operating cannot be extended into proof of stable long-term operation at commercial scale or of reduced environmental impact. Precisely because this is a method that links extraction through purification, what matters for a mass-production decision is how much product, at the required quality, can be obtained when each step runs continuously. Comparisons of water and energy use are likewise possible only with data based on the same feedstock and production volume.
There is also a transition in destination before the product reaches the US supply chain. Trafigura indicated it expects to direct a considerable portion to the US battery supply chain, but Reuters reporter Ernest Scheyder reports that the plan is to sell initially to Chinese customers and become a major supplier to the US market after the US battery supply chain develops. Producing with a US company's technology does not necessarily mean the entire output will be used domestically right away.
With Black Giant targeted for 2028 and Lonestar for 2029, the things to watch are construction progress, customer quality evaluations and product supply under continuous operation. If these come together, a path opens to steadily delivering brine-derived battery materials to the long-term buyer that has now been secured.