Addison-based lithium producer Empower EIT, which opened its Dallas Operations & Innovation Center this spring, has now fully commissioned the facility and added a new advisor to its team.
Jim Chaney is joining Empower EIT as senior advisor. Chaney has more than four decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, most recently with Hunt Oil.
Bringing operations to Addison
Empower EIT launched in May by combining Chicago’s DME Energy Resources and Calgary, Alberta’s Conductive Energy. The new business consolidated its operations into a new 17,000-square-foot headquarters and innovation facility in Addison.
The company’s platform covers the full lithium value chain: resource development, extraction and production of battery-grade lithium carbonate.
Jim Chaney is a senior advisor for Empower EIT. [Photo: Empower EIT]
“With our Dallas Operations & Innovation Center fully commissioned and the addition of Jim Chaney rounding out our leadership team, we’ve achieved two important milestones on our path to commercialization,” CEO Patrick Dowling said in a statement. “We are well positioned to meet our goal of first commercial sales in 2027 as we focus on asset acquisition, evaluating and testing additional U.S. mineral assets, strategic capital partnerships and offtake partnerships.”
From brine to battery-grade lithium carbonate
As Empower EIT moves toward commercialization, Chaney will play a key role in advancing the company’s reservoir strategy, technical diligence and integration of subsurface expertise throughout its growing energy and lithium portfolio, the company said.
“Empower EIT’s combination of differentiating technology, experienced leadership and strategic commercialization roadmap positions the company as a fully domestic, vertically integrated lithium platform,” Chaney said. “When I retired from Hunt, I was looking for a smaller, aggressive company I could support, and I’m excited to join Empower EIT at this pivotal point in the company’s growth.”
Empower EIT said third-party testing has validated its proprietary DLE and conversion technology. The results demonstrate the company’s ability to complete the entire lithium processing value chain, from field to finished product. The Dallas Operations & Innovation Center processes brine through DLE into battery-grade lithium carbonate. It also houses an environmental lab, which can test brine, validate resources and design lithium recovery systems from bench through field-deployable systems.
“The commissioning of our Dallas Operations & Innovation Center represents the culmination of more than a decade of research, development and technical optimization. Combined with the field deployments to date, this validates that our technology is ready to support commercial deployment,” Chief Technology Officer Preston McEachern said. “We’re ready to help additional resource owners unlock value through resource validation, efficient processing and conversion to battery-grade materials, and technology partnerships.”
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