An Australia-listed mining company has announced the acquisition of the Shafter Silver Project in Presidio County, a historic West Texas mining district located south of Marfa, along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The project sits within a carbonate rock sequence that stretches across northern Mexico and into West Texas, and is positioned along an extension of Mexico’s Eastern Sierra Madre Belt — a region known for major silver deposits. According to project materials, the Shafter mineralized zone spans roughly 4 kilometers and includes areas worked for more than a century.
The Shafter district includes the historic Presidio Mine, which operated from 1883 to 1942 before closing amid declining silver prices and wartime legislation. During that period, the mine produced about 35.2 million ounces of silver from roughly 2.3 million tons of ore, averaging 521 grams per ton.
Modern operations were restarted briefly in the 2010s after Aurcana Silver Corporation acquired the project in 2008 through subsidiaries and constructed new processing facilities. Production began in 2012 but ended in December 2013, after the price of silver fell to $18.19 per ounce, according to project documentation. Aurcana reported production of 134,557 ounces of silver during that 2012–2013 period, largely tied to a starter open pit and limited underground work.
The acquisition announcement highlights substantial on-site infrastructure built in 2012, including a mill, refinery, warehousing and administrative facilities, along with a Merrill-Crowe recovery plant and refinery. The materials also cite a regional 69-kilovolt power line tied to an on-site substation and describe unencumbered water rights for future operations.
The project’s most recent publicly referenced mineral resource estimate is a 2015 NI 43-101 technical report prepared for Aurcana, outlining an estimated 1.89 million tonnes grading 289 grams per tonne silver, totaling approximately 17.57 million ounces of silver at a 137 g/t cut-off. The company noted the estimate is classified as a foreign resource under Canadian reporting standards and has not yet been converted to a JORC 2012 mineral resource.
The company said it intends to begin exploration work, including surface mapping and sampling, followed by drilling aimed at improving confidence in the resource and testing targets beyond previously defined zones. Planned work includes investigating both the northeast extension of mineralization and areas southwest of the historic mine, while also evaluating shallower drilling for potential open-pit opportunities.
Project materials also cite prior drilling by Aurcana indicating significant mineralization beyond silver, including intervals that included gold, lead and zinc, and the company said it plans to reanalyze historic core and data to incorporate economically significant elements into a future updated resource estimate.
Company officials said a staged program over the next 12 to 24 months is expected to focus on producing an updated mineral resource estimate and advancing the project through technical studies, beginning with scoping-level work.
Any return to commercial production would depend on additional exploration results, updated feasibility work, permitting, site assessments and market conditions, the company said.
