From the Wall Street Journal:

A New Bromide: Brine Is Much Better Than Oil in Arkansas

SMACKOVER, Ark.- There’s a saying here when drillers strike oil: "Darn."   In southern Arkansas, the big driller prefer saltwater. And oil? "It’s a nuisance," says one briny veteran. For 40 years, a 10-mile-by-50-mile swalth through the pine forests here has been the world’s largest supplier of bromine, a crucial chemical element whose uses include fireproofing plastics for electronic equipment. Mined from subterranean saltwater deposited by ancient oceans, the bromine-rich brine long ago surpassed oil in economic importance to the state.
    But in Arkansas-- "the Natural State"--the industry has never received much respect. The two major producers here have been squabbling for years. And now the business faces a new rival on the other side of the world: the Dead Sea. So thick in minerals that swimmers bob like corks in the water, the Dead Sea has proved to be a richer--and cheaper--source of bromine than Arkansas is. Poised for rapid expansion, the Dead Sea’s industry threatens to supplant Arkansas as bromine capital of the world.
    Brine has always been less glamorous than oil. Rocks in this state have more sex appeal. "Clearly, oil has more pizazz than brine," says a manager for the bromine business.  When bromine was found to be a superb flame retardant in the 1960s, the market for the chemical exploded. Today (2000), the world bromine market is worth about $800 million, with about half of the production coming from Arkansas. In addition to flame retardants, bromine is used in pesticides and fungicides, pharmaceuticals, photography, water treatment and oil-field drilling fluids.
    On a recent wintry day, field supervisor Floyd Green drove his pickup down a muddy road to the company’s first new brine well in three years. "People in oil still don’t understand the brine business," say Mr. Green. "It’s hard for them to imagine what we would want with saltwater."   Oil just gets in the way. Six of Albemarle’s 27 producing wells also pump a few barrels of oil a day. The oil has to be extracted from the brine, then stored until there’s enough of it to sell.
    But drilling for brine isn’t for wimps. Brine wells are twice as big and twice as deep as the typical Arkansas oil well. And the stuff that comes out is much nastier: There is more poison gas, which can kill you in your tracks. Corrosive fluids often exceed 230 degrees in the ground and can curl the toes of your boots. "They just turn right up and look at you," says Mr. Green, who has ruined many a pair.  Green tells of a rookie who fled in horror after a senior brine worker, his face etched with 50 years of work in the fields, advised him not to let the brine get on his skin.
    While the two companies contend with each other, a bigger threat is coming from the Dead Sea, sandwiched between Israel and Jordan, which has a third of the market and is gaining fast. Instead of drilling for brine, Dead Sea companies can just scoop it out at about 60% of the cost that is incurred in Arkansas. Drawn from evaporation pits, Dead Sea brine contains as much has 10,000 pounds of bromine in every million pounds of brine. That compares with about 5,000 parts per million for Arkansas brine and about 65 parts per million for Gulf Coast seawater.
    Until recently, Israel has dominated bromine production.
    Even more ominous for Arkansas (and Michigan), bromine reserves in the state are expected to last about 50 more years, while the Dead Sea promises to have reserves for 1,000 years.