The American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) has regained a $115m grant from the US Department of Energy (DoE) to fund the first phase of a commercial-scale lithium refinery at its Tonopah Flats Lithium Project.
Situated in Nevada’s Big Smoky Valley near Tonopah, the site comprises 517 unpatented lode mining claims spanning more than 10,340 acres on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
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The company had initially been notified of the grant’s termination in October 2025, but the DoE has now restored the full award and project schedule after a review.
The grant is a part of a competitive five-year programme that was first awarded to ABTC in October 2022.
The refinery is designed to produce 5,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
The Tonopah Flats Lithium Project is reported to host one of the largest US lithium claystone resources across the measured, indicated and inferred categories.
ABTC completed two years of the grant term, and in June 2025 the project was also chosen by the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council and the FAST-41 Permitting Council as a critical mineral Priority Project.
However, on 9 October 2025, ABTC was informed that its grant, along with many others from the DoE, would be terminated.
ABTC contested the decision by filing an appeal on 10 October 2025 and entered an Informal Dispute Resolution process with the DoE. This involved several months of technical and commercial assessments, concluding with a final review meeting in December 2025.
Following this process, the DoE notified ABTC that “after a thorough review of all materials submitted, including your reconsideration request, the Department has concluded that recission of the termination notice and continuation of the project is warranted”.
The Tonopah Flats Lithium Project has received various stages of federal backing to promote advanced critical mineral technologies.
Early development and demonstration activities were supported by a DoE grant awarded under the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office during the first Trump administration.
After operating successfully at demonstration scale, the project later received the current DoE grant from the Manufacturing Energy Supply Chain office during the Biden administration.
With the completion of the review process, the project is moving forward again, reflecting continued federal support across multiple administrations.
ABTC CEO Ryan Melsert said: “We are proud of our long-standing partnership with the US Department of Energy and are grateful that after rigorous due diligence it has concluded that this critical mineral lithium refinery project has achieved all of its contracted technical and commercial milestones to date, and that continued federal support of this project is warranted.
“We consider the US Department of Energy one of our closest long-term partners and look forward to continuing to work with them throughout multiple administrations to continue to drive domestic critical mineral projects.”
