In two to three years Copper Flat Mine near Hillsboro should be in operation, according to Stephen Crosby, who was hired about a year ago as senior vice president of development.
Crosby gave a presentation at the Truth or Consequences City Commission meeting on April 9, which has not been done for several years by Copper Flat, perhaps because it was unsure it could open unless it obtained vast amounts of water rights needed to process the low-grade ore.
The need for water has been cut down to one sixth of the original projection. Crosby said using a “wet” ore-processing method would take 6,100 acre feet a year, but a dry method will use one-sixth or 1,050 acre feet, “which we have.”
THEMAC, owned by an Australian family, has been working to open the mine since 2010. Crosby said 10 to 15 years “is average” for the permitting process.
The company has been in litigation over water for much of that time. For background, see: https://sierracountysun.org/economy/new-mexico-copper-corporation-turner-ranch-properties-and-hillsboro-citizen-group-await-imminent-appellate-court-decision/
In one court case, Copper Flat Mine claimed nearly 7,500 acre feet in water right, which is 18 percent of the water New Mexico’s whole mining industry currently uses, including gas and oil.
https://grandchallenges.unm.edu/education/posters/samistroudposter.pdf
Copper Flat was awarded about 1,050 acre feet at the end of that water-adjudication case, which is what it needs to operate, Crosby said, since it has decided to use the “more expensive” but “dry” method for processing the ore.
The dry method removes the need for the tailings pond, which would have been filled with many acre feet of polluted, toxic water that could overflow its dam works in a severe weather event. “There will be no wet tailings dam,” Crosby said, “therefore there will be no risk of hurting Caballo [downstream].”
“Conservation of water is our number one concern,” Crosby said. “We consider the water as valuable as the gold in the ground,” which is selling at $3,000 an ounce, he said.
Crosby didn’t directly state that rising copper value has made the expensive dry method economically feasible, but the correlation is likely. “We expect the price of copper to be two times what it is today in five years,” he said. “Supply is falling and demand is rising.”
So far, Crosby said, THEMAC has spent $80 million dollars “with no return,” and expects to spend much more. During the construction phase, the company will spend about $60 million in Sierra County and $64 million “outside of the state.”
The mine still needs two permits, Crosby said–the mining permit and the operations permit.
By late 2026, construction will begin, with operations starting around January 2028, he said.
There will be 1,200 construction jobs and 270 jobs during operations, Crosby said.
Originally the mine was to be open for 12 years, but Crosby said the new estimate is 20 years.
Crosby said his main job is “socializing this project,” by which he means “You have to respect the rights of the people, but we also have to move forward.”
Thanks, Kathleen, for posting this news. Although NMCC has been putting out this prospect for several months now, it was waiting until the completion of a feasibility study to see if dry stack mining was possible. It is very expensive because of the added equipment and the process itself, which uses a lot of electricity. In fact, the process simply substitutes electricity for water. When I suggested this process 7 or 8 years ago, NMCC turned it down because of the cost. I understand that the feasibility study is complete now, and the company wants to pursue the project.
I haven’t seen that study, but everything depends on copper prices, and not just copper prices but copper prices relative to costs of production. Can they make a profit? Right now, that is a big “if.” The price of copper in the last year has fluctuated between $4 and $4.50 a pound, but inflation is also ticking up. With Trump in office, it went above $5 in March. Then with tariff fears, it dropped, like the stock market, down to almost $4. It has clawed its way up to about $4.50 again. But the price will be following the uncertainty in the economy and depend on what this country will or won’t do about the climate. If green energy is to be abandoned, then there will not be a demand for new power lines. If the electric vehicle is dead, the other demand for copper is dead. And, if the economy goes bust, new enterprise funding is gone. I doubt Mr. Maloney has the cash in hand to build a whole mine by himself.
Then, there is NMCC’s financial crisis to consider. At the beginning of the year, NMCC had about Canadian $158,000 cash in hand (about enough for Mr. Crosby’s salary). It is in the red by Canadian $93M (assets minus liability) and building up debt at the rate of about Canadian $13M a year. Because it has never paid the 20% interest on its loan agreement, it accrues debt. The loan is almost all used up and ends this year.
Dry stack is a nice idea, but who will pay for all those giant centrifuges used to fling out the water from the tailings?
The Copper Flat project should have no problem getting financing, as its one of the most advanced copper project anywhere, and economics benefiting from high metals prices. In addition to copper, I understand there is payable gold, silver and molybdenum. Dry stack tailings are fairly simple, but do represent an additional cost that has been factored into the feasibility. Simple filter presses will dewater the tailings, which would be conveyed to the final tails dam. Much has been made of the presence of trace amounts certain elements- arsenic, copper, cadmium, etc- but these are locked into their respective minerals as they originally existed in the rock, and in the absence of acids or oxygen, basically inert. The ore processing is a physical, not chemical process, and the tails dump less “toxic” than the average landfill.
This is a great project for Sierra County and Hillsboro. The appointment of Mr Crosby is a good sign this project will soon advance. I expect revenue generated will be over $250M per year based on the feasibility study, a boon for Sierra County and southwestern NM.