Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has successfully extracted lithium from brine samples from Aramco’s oilfields and plans to launch a commercial pilot program for direct extraction soon, the Saudi vice minister of mining affairs said on Tuesday.

Lithium Infinity, also known as Lihytech, a startup launched out of King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, will lead the extraction project with cooperation from Saudi mining company Ma’aden and Aramco, Khalid Al-Mudaifer told Reuters.

“They are extracting lithium through their new technology they have developed in King Abdullah University for Science and Technology and they are in accelerated development in this regard,” he said.

“They’re building a commercial pilot at the oil fields. So the brines that come out of the field will feed into this commercial pilot on a continuous basis,” added Al-Mudaifer.

Lithium is a key component in the batteries of electric cars, laptops, and smartphones.

The vice minister said that while the cost of extracting lithium from the brine runoffs from oil fields remained higher than the traditional method of extraction from salt flats, but added he expected that if lithium prices grew the project would soon be commercially viable.

Aramco, KAUST, and Ma’aden did not immediately reply to Reuters requests for comments.