Responding to increasing demand for battery-grade lithium, a venture of Schlumberger New Energy, NeoLith Energy, is preparing to open a new lithium extraction pilot plant in Clayton Valley, NV this year, the company announced Thursday.

The facility will use a differentiated direct lithium extraction (DLE) process to produce high-purity, battery-grade lithium material and work to optimize processes in advance of full production. Schlumberger New Energy plans to use information gleaned from the operation of the pilot plant to design a full-scale production site.

“Nevada lithium resources present an excellent opportunity to demonstrate a leap in production efficiency with a more sustainable approach,” Ashok Belani, executive vice president of Schlumberger New Energy, said in a release. “Schlumberger’s expertise in the subsurface domain, development of process technology, and global deployment of technology at scale with various partners all play an important role in the innovation and efficiency of our DLE process. We are accelerating the deployment of our pilot plant in response to the high market demand for battery-grade lithium material.”

The development of the pilot plant is part of Schlumberger New Energy’s agreement with Pure Energy Minerals to develop its lithium brine property in Nevada. Operations at the pilot plant are slated to commence before the end of this year.