Mandrake Resources Delivers 8,000L of Lithium Brine to Unlock Scoping Study
Key Takeaways
- Mandrake Resources has extracted over 8,000 litres of lithium brine from the Mississippian Leadville Formation at its Utah Lithium Project and delivered it to Direct Lithium Extraction provider Electroflow Technologies Inc.
- The majority of operational costs were covered by a US$1 million federal grant from the US Department of Energy, awarded to the Paradox Basin Lithium Group of which Mandrake is a member.
- Electroflow will produce purity, recovery, and costing data from Mandrake's brine — the direct inputs required to advance to formal Scoping Studies.
- The Utah Lithium Project holds a Maiden Inferred Resource of 3.3Mt Lithium Carbonate Equivalent across 100%-owned tenure exceeding 77,700 acres in the Paradox Basin.
- With $11.7M in cash and zero debt as at June 2026, Mandrake has the financial runway to execute the next phase without an immediate return to equity markets.
Brine extraction complete at Utah Lithium Project
Mandrake Resources (ASX: MAN) has successfully completed swabbing operations at the Evelyn Chambers #1 well, extracting over 8,000 litres of lithium brine from the Mississippian Leadville Formation at its Utah Lithium Project. That brine has now been delivered to US-based Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) provider Electroflow Technologies Inc, marking the operational step that directly enables the next phase: Scoping Studies.
The majority of costs associated with the operation were funded by a US$1 million federal grant awarded by the US Department of Energy (DoE) to the Paradox Basin Lithium Group, which comprises Idaho National Laboratories (project lead), the National Laboratory of the Rockies, the University of Utah, and Mandrake Resources.
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What Electroflow will do with Mandrake’s brine
Mandrake’s lithium brine will be subject to a comprehensive technical and commercial appraisal by Electroflow, which operates a DLE demonstration plant in Utah. The company intends to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium iron phosphate from Mandrake brine. The output of that appraisal will provide purity, recovery, and costing data — the key inputs that will form the basis of Scoping Studies.
Additional brine will also be supplied to several other DLE providers, though names have not yet been disclosed.
High-grade lithium brines in Utah have attracted growing attention from both government agencies and private DLE developers, with the Paradox Basin sitting alongside a federal research infrastructure that gives projects like Mandrake’s access to grant funding and laboratory support unavailable in most other jurisdictions.
What is Direct Lithium Extraction?
Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) is a processing technology that pulls lithium directly from brine using chemical or physical selectivity, rather than the conventional method of pumping brine into large evaporation ponds and waiting months or years for it to concentrate. DLE is gaining serious traction in the industry because it is faster, uses significantly less water, and typically delivers higher lithium recovery rates. Critically, DLE can process lower-grade brines that might be uneconomic under traditional evaporation methods. At this stage of a project, the choice of DLE partner matters because the technology selected shapes what the economics will look like at commercial scale.
From brine to battery-grade product
The Electroflow appraisal will test three things: purity levels of the extracted lithium, the recovery rate achievable from Mandrake’s specific brine chemistry, and the commercial cost data required to model a viable operation. Together, these outputs will determine whether the project can economically produce lithium carbonate and/or lithium iron phosphate at scale — the two battery-grade products Electroflow is targeting.
For investors, it is worth understanding what this milestone represents within the broader project sequence. Appraisal results feed Scoping Studies, and Scoping Studies establish the economic case for advancing to a prefeasibility study. This is a step-by-step de-risking process, and brine delivery to Electroflow is a concrete step forward in that sequence.
Utah Lithium Project — scale, location, and strategic context
For readers new to Mandrake, the Utah Lithium Project carries meaningful credentials at the project level:
- 100%-owned tenure exceeding 77,700 acres (~315km²) in the Paradox Basin, south-eastern Utah
- Maiden Inferred Resource of 3.3Mt Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE)
- Described in company materials as a “top tier US-domiciled lithium brine asset”
- Located in Utah’s pro-mining jurisdiction, with a regulatory environment that supports mining activities
- Tier 1 infrastructure access, including power and water
One technical nuance worth noting: the existing perforations at Evelyn Chambers #1 were originally designed to extract oil and gas (now depleted) and are therefore not optimised for targeting the modelled high-grade lithium concentrations within the Leadville Formation. Future dedicated lithium completions could potentially access higher-grade zones within the same formation, though this remains a forward-looking consideration at this stage.
| Metric | Detail |
|---|---|
| ASX Code | MAN |
| Shares on Issue | 627,259,920 |
| Share Price | $0.019 |
| Market Cap | ~$11.9M |
| Cash (June 2026) | $11.7M |
| Debt | Nil |
| Resource (LCE) | 3.3Mt Inferred |
| Project Area | 77,700+ acres |
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What comes next for Mandrake
With the brine now in Electroflow’s hands, the near-term roadmap is straightforward:
- Electroflow’s appraisal will generate purity, recovery, and costing data from Mandrake’s brine.
- Those results are expected to form the basis of Scoping Studies, the next formal project valuation milestone.
- Additional brine will be supplied to further DLE providers (names not yet disclosed).
- Mandrake also holds the 100%-owned Berinka Gold-Copper Project in the Northern Territory’s Pine Creek Orogen, providing secondary portfolio exposure.
With $11.7M in cash and no debt as at June 2026, Mandrake holds the financial runway to execute the next phase of work without an immediate need to return to equity markets.
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