New mining company still intent on starting operations again
Shafter
The owner of the Cibolo Creek Ranch resort north of Shafter is suing to claim the right to purchase hundreds of acres owned by the nearby silver mine, which reportedly is gearing up to begin operations again as the price of silver has surged.
Shafter is 40 miles south of Marfa, and the resort—spanning about 30,000 acres tucked in the Chinati Mountains, six miles north of the town—abuts much of the property owned by various mining companies through the decades.
The resort’s owner, John Poindexter, under the corporate name of Southwestern Holdings, filed a lawsuit in November against the previous mine owners and the new owner, Black Bear Minerals, headquartered in Australia, asserting a lease agreement he had on various plats of land gave him the “first right of refusal,” meaning that he has the right to try and purchase the land first. The land in question—hundreds of acres—isn’t home to any of the mine’s key operation locations.
Poindexter had previously sought to buy the entirety of the mine, including all the land where previous shafts were dug and where excavations were processed for the silver. Sources, who wished to remain unnamed because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the mine owner at the time, Aurcana of British Columbia, Canada, refused to even reply to his offer of $55 million. Those sources said Poindexter’s intent was to leave the land preserved with no future mining.
Poindexter, whose worth is estimated in the billions, made his fortunes producing heavy commercial trucks. He is currently restoring several of Shafter’s buildings with the intent of making it a historical tourist destination.
The mine’s heyday was from the late 1890s and through the 1920s and 1930s, but declining silver prices forced it to close in 1942. Through the decades, various companies did exploratory drilling and testing to gauge existing silver deposits and discover new ones. Aurcana acquired the mine in 2008 and made an attempt to start operations again, resulting in a short-lived reopening of the mine from 2012 until 2013, when declining silver prices again forced a closure.
In 2022, Aurcana had a financial meltdown and defaulted on a $28 million loan intended to fund its silver mine in Ouray, Colorado, leaving the future of Shafter’s mine uncertain. The company actively listed the Shafter site for sale, and after one unsuccessful purchase by a Canadian company, Black Bear Minerals (formerly James Bay Minerals) made a successful offer.
According to court records, Poindexter’s attorneys informed Aurcana of its first right of refusal in October. Aurcana responded that for that right to exist, the property in question would have to be in “final abandonment,” meaning no mine activity had taken place for 20 years, and it claimed there had been mine exploration. The plaintiff’s attorneys disputed that in the lawsuit and claimed they have received no information from Aurcana to prove it was active on the land.
On November 21, Southwestern Holdings filed for a temporary and permanent injunction in Presidio County District Court to stop the sale to Black Bear Minerals. However, the deed transferring the property to Black Bear Minerals also was filed with the county that day. No hearings are currently set in the lawsuit.
Black Bear Minerals CEO Dennis Lindgren did not respond to a request for comment, but he did speak in a trade publication video in February asserting the company was still moving forward on opening the mine and that “all major permits are officially confirmed and in place.” While he didn’t detail which permits, a variety of permits are required by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for mining operations.
An attorney at Braun & Gresham, representing the plaintiff, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
It’s uncertain at what level silver prices would need to be to make the mine profitable, but in the past, experts have pinned it at least $24 an ounce. The price hovered around that level for three years before skyrocketing in December and reached peaks above $100 an ounce before stabilizing the last three months around $75 an ounce.
“Because we have been preparing the site, we are hitting the ground running,” Lindgren said in a March video. “We’re turning a historical asset into a modern permanent project that is ready to deliver .… We set out with a vision for Shafter. Today with the permits in hand and the site ready, that vision is becoming a reality.”