Good morning, everybody. I like to start my presentation off with a picture. This is where we are today. We are in West Texas. This is our extraction unit, and it is our refining unit. This is the only refining of lithium carbonate in America right now from produced water from oil fields, and that matters. Who am I? I am Alex Wylie. I am President, CEO of LibertyStream, and I am going to talk today about what LibertyStream is and what sets us apart because the way I see it, we are very different from a lot of lithium companies out there. I will start with this. We are extracting lithium from oilfield brine. People say, "What is an oil and gas guy doing in a mining industry?" I am going to say, "This is not about mining." I am going to start with the Permian Basin.
The Permian Basin, people talk about oil production. I am going to talk about water production. From an oil production perspective, the Permian Basin does 6.5 million barrels of oil a day. That is one of the largest. As a country, it would be number four in the world right now. I am here to talk about water, because why is water important? There is 20 million barrels a day of water being produced in the Permian Basin. That is the equivalent of about 150,000 tons per year of lithium carbonate. If you compare that to other companies, Albemarle, they do 65,000 tons on three continents. We can do it all right here in the Permian Basin in our backyard, and that matters. Great, there is a lot of lithium. How are we going to do this? How do we execute?
This whole story about what I am talking about today is about execution. It starts with technology. We developed our technology six years ago. We developed it up in the Nanotechnology Research Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, and that matters because you have to have your own technology. From my perspective, if you own it, you can make it better. That matters. Great, you can do a technology, you can do it in a lab. Who cares? There are 100 companies that can do a lab. The key here is doing it in the field, and that is what sets us apart. We have been in the field since 2024 in the Permian Basin, and that matters because our customers say to us, they say, "Great, you can do lithium carbonate. I want it from the field because I am not going to sign an offtake with you.
I am not going to do an agreement with you unless I get it from the field." We are in the field. This is our first site. The first picture I showed you was a zoom-in of our lithium refining and our extraction unit. I am going to talk a little bit about what we do and who we are and why it matters. This is a site in West Texas, in a place called Howard County. The site that we are on is a Select Water Solutions site. Select Water, they are on the New York Stock Exchange. They are a multibillion-dollar company. They move 2.5 million barrels of water a day. What does that mean? That means about 25,000 tons of lithium per year. That is a lot of lithium. How does it actually happen? Through sites like these.
They got 20 of these sites throughout the basin, and this matters. The way the water comes in, it is all pipeline. When you hear about 20 million barrels of water a day, it is pipeline, 98% of that water is pipelined through the basin. That matters. There has been $100 billion plus spent on infrastructure, building out the water pipeline network. It comes in through number one here. That is what is called an AST, an aboveground storage tanks. It goes from number one to number two, and I am talking about Select's operations right now, not ours. It goes from number one to number two. Number two, what they do is they pre-treat the water. That means they are taking the iron and organics out of the water, and that goes in those two ponds. Each of those ponds is 750,000 barrels.
Now, what they do with that water is they resell it for fracking. A frack job is anywhere from 800,000 to 1 million barrels per frack job. There is a lot of water moving around the basin. Now, how does LibertyStream fit in? Before it goes to that pond, it goes through number 3 because we need to extract the lithium. Now, we have got that water for about 45 minutes, and we give it back. What we do not do is we do not disrupt their operations. What we need to do from a three-step process for lithium, from extraction to refining, three steps. We have got to pre-treat the water. Select does that as well. They have got to take iron and organics out. We have to take iron and organics out.
We have got to extract the lithium, and then we have got to refine it, and that is the key to what we are doing. This is not about talking about what we could do. This is about what we are doing today. Now, from a Select operations perspective, we pay them to pre-treat. We pay them a royalty. I am going to talk about our operating costs. Our operating costs are $6,200 a ton, and those pre-treatment costs from a royalty perspective are baked into that. Now, that matters for Select because we pay them on output based on lithium production. We increase their margin significantly on-site. So they are looking at it like, "Well, this is a great deal. You are paying me to pre-treat the water. You have got my water for 45 minutes. This sounds like a really good deal." John Schmitz said that, and he goes, "So let me understand this, Alex.
You are putting your own facility in, and you are paying us a royalty?" I go, "Yep." He says, "Your CapEx is $37 million. That seems like a good deal for me. I am going to be operating on this site for 20 years, so you are going to work with me for 20 years?" "Probably longer, John." He goes, "Okay, that sounds like a really good deal. What is in it for me? What is in it for you, Alex?" I said, "Well, John, you spent a couple billion dollars in infrastructure to get those water here," and that matters because when I look at lithium extraction and refining, 50% of your costs are getting water to surface and moving it through pipelines. We do not have to do anything. That matters. That puts us in a low-cost operator perspective. Just a little bit about where we have been and what we are doing.
We founded the company back in 2020. The technology was founded up in the Nanotechnology Research Centre. We have raised about $45 million to date. We are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, and we have been focused completely on execution. This is completely an execution story. People talk about, okay, what is the world movement of lithium? Where does it come from? What is the opportunity? The way we see it today from a China perspective, 85% of batteries are from China, 70% of the lithium is refined in China. It is not being refined in America. It is not being produced in America. It is not being extracted in America. That matters because what I see from a customer perspective, we have got four different industries here. A lot of people talk about electric vehicles because that is a big part of it. People talk about data centers. That is a big part of it.
What they do not talk about is the industrial customers. I have got three industrial customers that are getting short for product next year. They cannot get product. That is an opportunity. That is why this is a story about now, because we are executing now. When we look around the world and where the opportunity is, what our customers say to us is origin matters. They want their lithium from America. They want the stable supply chain, and they see the opportunity. The other thing is we have got shortages happening now. We can fill that gap now. I am going to show you a slide. Conventional production can take anywhere from 7-15 years. That is not going to work. Then finally, when you look at the Permian itself, the opportunity is significant, and it is all right in our own backyard here in North America.
Just taking a look at what this looks like from the perspective of CapEx and capital build out, and this is why it matters. When you look at capital intensity, other than some of the salars, which are pretty dangerous, we are significantly less. Why are we less? We do not drill wells. We do not build infrastructure. We take titled water. I am in the business of extracting and refining midstream and downstream. That matters. That is what our customers care about. Just a high level from a customer perspective what this slide means. The key that we have done is the operating tests. We have got 2,500 operating tests. We have done a lot since then. This is from the summer. We are executing in the field. A lot of people say, "Well, the lithium content in the Permian, it is low grade. You cannot do it." I say, "Well, really?
Check out my body of data. We are doing it every day." People say, "What is your cost?" $6,200 ton. "Okay, so you say you can do it. Is anyone going to buy it off you?" I have signed an offtake agreement in Q2 of this year, and that matters because when we signed that offtake agreement, it is not about just giving a kg of lithium carbonate. They said, "We will believe you once we run a ton through our industrial system. If you do that, we are going to sign the offtake." Well, we signed that offtake. Now, that was not only important for that customer. Now all of a sudden, we have got a lot of other customers that are sitting there going, "Hold on. It has been validated through a process." Because all the customers know you have got to validate it through a process. So we validate it through the process.
People have been running to the doors, and that's a pretty good place to be. Again, just a little bit of a backdrop as a refresher. We built the media. The media is great. That's what we've done on our own. But the media on its own doesn't get you there. It's the process. You got to do it. You've got to have those years of battle testing in the field, years of failure, years of improving, years to get to the point where we're at this demonstration Gen six equipment, and we're going to commercial production. Same equipment, same flow sheet we operate at today. We run 24 hours a day. I made three batches yesterday. We made battery grade yesterday. No one else can say that. Again, just high level, three steps. And again, I've talked a little bit about it.
Pre-treatment, extraction, refining, all key are integral to what we're doing as a business. Great. You say you can do it, Alex. Here's the proof, and this is what the customers are seeing. When I look at what we're doing from a customer's perspective, we've been making battery grade for months. This is what we've done since we've been on the Select site earlier this year. Great. We can make battery grade. What the customers want is consistency over long periods of time, especially when you get to the battery grade size. What our customers look at, especially from battery grade versus industrial, key differentiator. One is particle size distribution. A battery grade folk, they want 10 microns to 50 microns. An industrial customer could be anywhere from 10 to 850. Well, that's a wider range. Particle size distribution matters. How do I know that?
Because I'm in the field, and I'm supplying product to the customers. What does that customers look like? Well, right now, we've got 9,100 tons of demand for 2028 alone. That's way more than we can do right now. I like to be in that situation. What our plan is as we move into 2027 and 2028, we start small with people, and we build up with them. What does build up mean? We got a customer, they want to go from 500 to 5,000. How do you do that? It's through execution and making sure that we're properly managing with each of the customers. Before I just get onto the next slide, it's all about execution. And this year has been all about execution. We've got Select Water Solutions that we signed our definitive agreement. We got to the field. We built things in record time.
We signed our first offtake, and then we got the term sheet for debt, and that's really important because the customers are now saying, "Okay, we see a pathway to success in how you're going to do that." They say, "We like that you've got the debt piece in. We see our pathway." It's been execution in what we're doing right now. Site's built, okay, from the perspective. We got the concrete laid. We got everything coming. We are going to be doing industrial trials as we move into Q1. We're going to go into steady state production in Q2. We're the only ones in North America that can say that. People say, "Okay, what does this pathway look like?" And I'm giving an illustrative example of what this looks like. From the debt perspective, it really covers off a lot of what we need.
Now, when you look at the equity perspective, you see a range from 3,000 tons to 5,000 tons. You see $49 million to $73 million. What does that mean? That could mean customers moving to the front. It could be other feedstock providers moving to the front of the line. People want this because they want to be part of this story because they need product. Again, growth strategies. What are we doing? We are expanding our production on the Select partnership. We are doing that now. We are in the Permian Basin. We have also mentioned that we are in the Bakken, and that is really important. The Bakken is relevant. We have got a group that we signed an MOU with that we previously announced. It is called Packet Digital. What does Packet Digital do? They make batteries for drones for the U.S. military. They have to be getting their lithium from America by 2028.
There is one group that can do it for them, and it is us. They are anxious. They want product. We are in a very fortunate situation. Another key part of our growth strategy, we have got to convert that pipeline. Talked about 9,100 tons. We got lots of people coming into the fray with us. I think what you are going to see from us as we start moving forward, continued execution, continue to convert that pipeline. Great. You can do all this stuff. You got to have a team, and the team is everything. I am going to highlight a couple people here. One is Tim Frost. Tim Frost was formerly with Albemarle. He ran Europe and North America for Albemarle. He is the guy that opened up the door with a lot of industrial customers you wouldn't even know or think about. He opened up the door from an Albemarle perspective.
It is great. He opened up the door. How do you actually go through the door? That is where Chris Johnson comes in. He is a 20-year guy. He is a facilities engineer. We got to have people managing and operating the facilities. That is so key. There is a lot of overlap between the oil and gas industry and what we are doing. Execution from a facilities perspective is key. You can't do it unless you have got an EPC building it for you, and that is what we are doing with our EPC. So InDemand, our construction partner, they built Freedom Launchpad, the picture that you saw earlier. They are building Freedom 1. Why is that relevant? I am a walk before you run type of person. It is about experience with the team. It is about experience in building. It is about operating.
It is about having flaws when you have Freedom Launchpad and improving it, so when we go into commercial production next year, this isn't a test. This is about execution. To highlight, if there is anything you are going to remember, hopefully, about today, we are making product now. We are going into commercial production next year, and no one can say that, at least people that I see. We have signed our first offtake. That matters. People, customers know that we are executing and we are delivering product. I think I am at 20 minutes. I hopefully-
Close.
Okay. Thank you.
We have time for questions, right?
Sure.
Yeah, we do. Yeah. Questions?
I'm hearing that you're looking at listing on the Nasdaq.
Yep.
Can you give us- I will repeat the question. I have heard that you are going to be pursuing a Nasdaq listing.
Yep.
Could you give us more details?
We announced in August that we filed the S-1 confidentially. We are looking at all our options in terms of the future. We moved to Texas. We are a Texas company. We are originally a Calgary company. Why does that matter? Our customers are demanding it. It is a very deep market in the Nasdaq. We think that is a huge opportunity. There is depth of capital there. We see it as an exciting opportunity as we convert ourselves going forward. What does that look like? We are going to have to frame that out as we go. We have got ourselves in a lot of decisions that we are making right now. I think when you think about the LibertyStream story and you think about decisions that we are going to make, I would focus on customers first. We are not going to make decisions to go onto the Nasdaq, do things, until we start converting our customer pipeline.
That is critical. This is about execution. This is about delivering product.
I saw you guys got debt financing, which at your scale is remarkable. You never see that in microcaps ever. How are you thinking about the debt to equity split for future facilities? Are you thinking 50/50, or what's the thought process there?
What we're looking at when we announce that term sheet, that's project financing. We'll be more of a traditional split 50/50. As we start executing, we're going to be operating for 20, 30 years out there. We've got the ability to have more debt. I want to layer in debt as we get more experience in what we're doing and show people that we can make it work. Again, customers supported by project financing, supported by opportunities are where we're going to go.
Any other questions?
Hi there. I was just curious, where do you see the company in three years, and what's your vision there?
I love that question. Where do I see us? Today, there's a couple of problems that we want to solve. We got a little water problem down in West Texas and in Arizona. I'm going to talk longer vision. How do we get from here to there? We start off with lithium because that's what we're focused on. We've got other opportunities for multi-element units as we start to move forward. What's a low-hanging fruit that we can go after? Fertilizer. Magnesium, magnesium chloride, magnesium carbonate. Chloride is used for road salt, carbonate is used for gypsum. We got a lot of low-hanging fruit. What I see for us is a pathway to ultimately what's going to happen with desalination.
As I've said to a lot of people, especially a lot of the big oil companies, have said the pathway to desalination is through critical minerals extraction. It is technically feasible. You can do it. You can do desalination in West Texas. It's not economical. The pathway to ultimately get there is through critical mineral extraction. When we're doing that pathway to critical mineral extraction, it's not just going to be a couple elements. We're going to keep getting better and better at what we do. I'll go back to that technology that we've done. What we're really good at is getting that media that we've developed in-house, and we're continuing to do R&D so we can do other products ourselves. I see a big opportunity with that.
Just to follow up, I meant more in terms of lithium production and scale and what's your vision on that side as well, in addition to these additional revenue streams, it sounds like you're saying.
I think my lawyers would kill me right now. I think that we're in a very fortunate situation where we've got demand, and we're in a class of one. When you're in a class of one, you've got a unique situation. People talk about first-mover advantage and what can happen. What's the demand in America right now? People will say, Fastmarkets will tell you it's 100,000 tons per annum. I'm talking with groups that need more. The Permian can deliver up to 150, but it's going to grow. Water productions, we put there 20 million barrels a day. That's increasing as we speak. To keep the oil production at 6.5 million barrels, you're going to drill more wells, more water comes in. By 2030, we see water production up to 30 million barrels a day. This is a massive resource.
What does that look like ultimately? I hope I am talking about that in a year when we have got Freedom 1 and Freedom 2 up and running. We are going to talk about where we are going to grow from there. We see a big opportunity. I have to say, this is no longer an idea. This is a big story because we are in a class of one.
You talked about the potential in the Bakken. Can you talk about the parts per million of lithium in Bakken versus that in the Permian, and also the potential of iodine extraction in Bakken?
Yeah, absolutely. When I look at grade, okay, because people say, okay, it is all about grade. The parts per million here is 28 to 33 parts per million. Okay? That is one part of the equation. The other part of the equation is the complexity of the water. If you go to a place like the Smackover, you can get up to 300, 400 parts per million, but that water is a lot more complex. This water is not complex. That is a key driver in what we are doing. The other thing is, again, 50% of the costs are getting water to surface and moving it by pipeline. Well, I do not have to deal with any of those problems. What I am focused on is being ruthless with costs. Back to that comment, what do you see yourselves doing?
The way to drop our operating costs is multi-element in what we are doing. I see a clear pathway to what we are doing on all that. Grade in other, like Thacker Pass, has got much higher grade. It is a different process. You are a couple of billion to get into the game there. This is different. This is execution, but what we are doing now. There is another field in the U.S. called the Marcellus, okay? Grade there is 450 parts per million. That sounds really good. There is 60,000 barrels a day of water, though, versus 20 million. I am not going to do that. I am perfecting what we are doing, and that is why I have been in the field for the years because people have told me since 2024, "You cannot do this." I have said, "Okay, well, I am doing it. Here is my couple thousand tests.
You want to see my body of data?" Customers are going, "Oh, I guess you can do it." Disruption by being a little bit different.
We have time for a couple more.
Okay.
What are your competitors?
I look over my shoulder every day for the past six years, I am trying to figure that out. We are the first. Now, I think once we see people come into the field and start operating, I will tell you who my competitors are, but I do not see anyone out there right now. This is hard. This is years of being in the field so far. This is years of going from generation 2 to generation 6. You know what that says? Failure and improvement. Once I see someone out there failing all the time, and I do not wish that on anybody, but go out there and try it, then we will start to talk. Now, what I see as an opportunity, there are four or five groups that move the water. Big players, 2.5 million to 3 million plus.
There's groups that want someone to improve their margins, okay? What I've seen from an oil and gas perspective is everybody's good at one thing, okay? I would put us in that category. We're not good at drilling wells. I don't want to drill wells. We're good at extraction and refining. Select can move the water. Select wants to be in the business of moving water. You know what the oil companies want to do? They want to be in the company of producing oil. A frack company wants to be in the business of fracking. Everyone's good at one thing. If you focus on that from a mentality, it's hard to disrupt you because the oil company or someone else will say, "Well, okay, are we going to test a new guy?" I had to go through that new guy thing, okay?
Are we just going to go with LibertyStream because they're doing it and I know I'm going to get my margins? Okay? I'll tell you, when we actually got on site with the select guys, and we're up and running two months later, they were like, "We thought this was going to be years." I said, "I'm not in that business. I'm in the business of execution. Do one thing really good.
For the sake of clarity, the current demand for lithium in North America, where you would be, I think, typically supplying, is how many thousands of tons per year?
Fastmarkets will tell you 100,000 right now, growing to 600,000 over the next four or five years. I would tell you they're a little late. Now I don't really care because I'm in a class 1.
In terms of, for example, electric cars, the lithium batteries
Yeah
how much lithium is in, I'll call it a medium range or a long-range battery? I know it depends on the size of car as well, but.
Yeah. There was a presentation from John over at First Phosphate, and he'd tell you 4%. That's about right. What I'm seeing though is, so that's an electric vehicle. Now let's talk about what's happening with Tesla, okay? With those semi-autonomous trucks, okay? You know who's doing those? Depot to depot, Walmart, Pepsi. They're a lot bigger, okay? My view about, so per car, I don't even have to look at it that way, okay? Because I hate to say it, I don't care. I've got so much demand. What I can tell you is with the customers that I'm talking with, they're like, "Come on, can you do more?" It's like, "No. I'm going to be executing what we're doing." That's the key. We'll get there, but not next year because people will say, "Well, then you're going to dilute.
How would you guys think to go into partnership with funding the expansion?
I've had that so many questions so many times, right? You know how to get weak in a negotiation? Beg for money. The way I look at it is let's get people started on contracts, and then if you want to expand with us, then you can start participating in the capital stack. But I'm going to make sure that I've got the leverage and I'm going to deal with multiple customers to start, and then we'll talk about expansion. Because the demands are, and I'm in a class 1. If I just take the first guy and say, "Okay, well, I got $40 million from one group." Well, you know what? It's pretty hard to get other groups at that point in time. It's about smart and being executed. As we start to see what the customers want is product.
What I don't want to do is be beholden to one group. I want to be a thoughtful execution plan. Like 91 to 100 tons I showed you on a slide earlier of six different customers, that could grow to 20, could grow to 30. That's not all their demand. That's what we can deal with at this point in time. I'm very opportunity rich right now.