Chevron is acquiring land to produce lithium. The oil companies are slowly building out lower-carbon energy businesses. Oil giants Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) can read the writing on the wall: They can see that fossil fuels will eventually go extinct.

Multinational oil giant Chevron announced Tuesday that it has struck a deal with energy start-up TerraVolta to jump into the lithium extraction game in south Arkansas and east Texas.

Chevron (NYSE:CVX) said Tuesday it agreed to acquire 125K net acres in the Smackover formation spanning northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas from TerraVolta Resources and East Texas Natural Resources;