Summary

Mine Type	In-Situ
Study Completed	Preliminary Economic Assessment
Commodities	Lithium
Mining Method	Brine mining
Project Timeline	...
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	Viewfield project is a world class Lithium asset. Hub City Lithium has completed its Treatability Study with Koch Technology Solutions. The Study was done in preparation for a Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) field pilot (one of the first in Canada) on the Hub City Lithium well. In 2024, the DLE pilot was conducted, running 24/7 for 3–4 months and treating Viewfield brine at ~6,500–9,000 L/day to produce a concentrated LiCl eluate. It successfully delivered battery-grade lithium carbonate and confirmed the DLE flowsheet; the eluate was refined off-site. On 29 May 2025, EMP Metals and Saltworks agreed to build “Project Aurora,” a wellhead demo plant at Viewfield that converts raw brine to LiCl (with carbonate finished at Saltworks, Richmond). It aims to de-risk and validate the DLE flowsheet at near-commercial scale and generate data/samples for engineering, offtake, permitting, and financing.
Latest News	Emp Metals Files Ni 43-101 Resource Estimate Technical Report For Its Viewfield And Mansur Projects, Saskatchewan     August 26, 2025

Deposit type

• Brine
• Evaporite

Summary:

EMP's primary target for lithium-enriched brines is the Devonian-aged carbonates of southern Saskatchewan. Within the Williston Basin, these reservoirs are stratigraphically below most of the oil development; however, there are several areas within Saskatchewan where exploration and development of these deeper targets occur, enabling mapping and evaluation of the Duperow in this region. At Mansur and Viewfield, these Devonian-aged, regionally extensive carbonate sequences were deposited in a shallow water, often evaporitic environment at the end of a long evaporitic deposition sequence. This depositional history appears favourable for leaching lithium from aquifers as the brines concentrate over time. Multiple shallowing upward sequences characterise the deposition of the Souris River and Duperow carbonates. This repeated depositional pattern divides the porous limestone and dolostone layers into several regionally extensive reservoirs. Recent production testing and water analysis support the hypothesis that these reservoirs are hydrodynamically isolated. (Rostron, 2022). In total, more than 10 separate aquifers within the Duperow and Souris River formations have been identified as having high concentrations of lithium in their brines.

Viewfield Block
EMP’s Viewfield block contained within a five-township region east of Mansur. EMP's acreage within the Viewfield project area is 25,979 Ha, which is more than 100 sections of mineral interest. For calculating lithium in place, the Viewfield project area has been divided into eight sections, each modeled individually based on geological properties and available concentration data. Petrophysical evaluation at Viewfield was conducted using 24 wells within and around the Viewfield project area. Most deep wells in the region have been drilled since 1990 and are equipped with modern digital log data.

Petrophysical evaluation of all wells in the region confirms the high degree of dolomitization that is prevalent across all zones of the Wymark and Saskatoon members. Both 101/2-22-7-9W2 and 101/08-24-008-09W2 are evaluation wells drilled by EMP that have undergone extensive brine sampling to assess lithium concentrations. The lithium concentrations used for geo-modelling in Viewfield were determined using available offset data, as well as the brine testing programs conducted by EMP since 2021. The multi-zone production tests confirm the high deliverability of the Duperow reservoirs, with initial brine production exceeding 450 m³/d when all zones were open refer.

Brine Mineralization
In southern Saskatchewan, it is believed that a long period of evaporitic conditions resulted in highly concentrated lithium brines within the Souris River and Duperow formations. Rostron et al. (2022) have extensively researched the brine chemistries of the Devonian, and by using the ratio of Chlorine to Bromine versus Sodium to Bromine ratios from Devonian brines, supports the theory that these brines are not merely the result of dissolved evaporites. The water chemistries of the Duperow suggest that the long history of evapo-concentrated Devonian seawater may be partially or fully responsible for the high lithium concentrations observed in the Duperow formation of southern Saskatchewan.

Post-depositional rock fluid interactions are also believed to play a crucial role in controlling lithium presence (Jensen et al. 2020). Lithium concentration within the brines may have been further enhanced by the dolomitization process, which could have involved the absorption of magnesium ions and the expulsion of lithium ions from the rock into the brine during dolomitization. A recent paper on the origin of lithium enrichment in upper Devion Leduc brines of Alberta (Butler et al. 2024) suggests possible lithium enrichment from multiple sources during different stages of brine genesis, with potentially significant contributions from rock-water interactions, specifically from Devonian shales. Each of these lithium enrichment mechanisms likely plays a role in the lithium-enriched brines present in the subsurface today. Recent testing results by Rostron et al. (2022), combined with EMP’s brine testing results, suggest that each Duperow and Souris River aquifer will have individual lithium concentrations based on brine genesis and rock-brine interactions within each reservoir.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Commodity Production

Commodity	Units	Daily	Avg. Annual	LOM
LCE	t	....	12,175	282,090

Operational metrics

Metrics
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Personnel

Job Title	Name	Profile	Ref. Date
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