Copper Flat Mine will use tons of water, loads of electricity, will dump tons of damp tailings with lead, mercury, sulfates, nitrates and other contaminants as well as creating dust and air pollution with these same contaminants. A boom/bust operation lasting maybe 20 but probably 12 years.
Most of the profits will go to Australia, if current owners don’t sell it after slogging through a 15-year process to get permits to operate–a process that is near the end. And now that they are nearly through that permitting process, THEMAC has gone dark, gone private.
Trust the government to protect locals and the environment from this company that has experts who can run rings around overworked and understaffed government agencies? No. Especially when you see how THEMAC went private. We need public hearings and public scrutiny on these permits.
Imagine you bought stock in THEMAC Resources Group LTD, which owned Copper Flat Mine from 2010 to Oct. 25, 2025.
You knew it was risky, since the stock, MAC, was traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange’s public venture capital market for emerging companies, TSXV. But the stock share price was low, and you expected big returns, since electronic vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, AI centers, and other technologies need lots of copper. You bought the stock in 2009, shortly after THEMAC bought Copper Flat.
Then you get a letter from THEMAC, stating that they plan to go private. To do so, the majority of the stockholders present at the Oct. 8 stockholders’ meeting have to agree to sell, which meeting you are invited to attend, the letter says. You can either sell your stock for 8 cents a share Canadian, equivalent to 5.7 cents a share U.S., which is about 11 percent above the market value, or you can hang onto your stock that will likely become worth nothing.
A copy of the shareholders’ letter can be found at : https://themacresourcesgroup.com/news/www.sedar.com
You see, dear stockholder, the letter explains, THEMAC has borrowed $67.4 million principal from Tulla Resources Group at 20 percent interest, and this interest and “accrued finance expense” comes to $121.5 million, for a total debt of $188.9 million. If you, the stockholders, don’t agree to sell, Tulla will likely recall the loan, and THEMAC will become “insolvent.”
A majority of the stockholders agreed to sell, since MAC stock was removed from the TSXV stock exchange October 25.
Tulla and THEMAC, by the way, are both owned by the Maloney family of Australia, with 78-year-old father Kevin, eldest son Andrew and second son Mark all occupying board-of-directors’ positions and company management positions.
Tulla likely loaned THEMAC the money for Copper Flat in order to write off bad debt every year and reduce its tax load by millions. Money saved on taxes is as good as or better than income from operations.
Tulla already owned nearly 61 percent of MAC stock, and bought up the 39 percent remaining from willing-or-not stockholders. The nearly 31.5 million shares at 5.7 cents U.S. cost Tulla about $1.8 million, which is nothing compared to the $13.4 million tax deduction Tulla probably takes each year on THEMAC’s failure to pay 20 percent interest on its $67 million loan.
And now Copper Flat’s financial status and dealings are no longer subject to public scrutiny. No more publicly-available quarterly financial reports.
Copper Flat going dark coincides with its application for a mining permit, which is currently under review by the state’s Energy Minerals and Natural Resources’ Mining and Minerals Division. If the company gets the mining permit from the MMD as well as its renewed wastewater discharge permit from the New Mexico Environment Department and the mining permit from the Bureau of Land Management, (Copper Flat’s 2,100-acre mine site is partially on BLM land), then it’s in a good position to sell the property. Or to sell private stock or seek investors or loans to finance the two-year construction estimated at about $124 million by THEMAC’s Senior Vice President of Development Stephen Crosby. See the following for Crosby’s statements: https://sierracountycitizen.org/copper-flat-mine-to-use-much-less-water/
This may be the last chance for public oversight on Copper Flat Mine, which is more important than ever since their cut-throat business tactics presage the same disregard for the environment and the people in their pursuit of profit.
Government oversight on this mine, and thus the people’s ability to hold the government accountable and to know the impact of the mine is divided up among the MMD, NMED and BLM, as well as other governmental entities. With government’s unwitting collusion, Copper Flat Mine’s owners have been handed a divide-and-conquer play book. Getting an overview is nearly impossible. Even knowing that Copper Flat has applied for a discharge and mining permit takes diligent tracking. And the public must clamor for a public hearing on these permits, since they will be done behind closed doors otherwise.
I’m asking you, dear reader, to clamor. To email the MMD for a public hearing on the mining permit at mmd.marp@emnrd.nm.gov and to email the NMED for a public hearing on the discharge permit at mecs.general@env.nm.gov.
To find a copy of Copper Flat’s NMED discharge permit application, go here:
To find a copy of Copper Flat’s MMD mining permit application go here:
Letter already sent to ask for a public hearing. Thanks for the informative article, Ms. Sloan.