‘Miner’ Tom Peever’s renewable energy deal with Cudeco before alleged $200m ATO fraud

The man accused of orchestrating an alleged mining fraud said he would extract precious metals from copper mine tailings. The project never got close to happening and a group of investors are owed a fortune.

Tom and Kirsten Peever at their wedding. The couple allegedly owes the Australian Taxation Office more than $200m.

A man accused of pulling the strings behind a complex alleged mining fraud that has left him facing a $200m tax bill, hoped to turn rocks leftover from an old mine site into a clean energy dream.

Tom Peever’s company had secured a deal with former market darling Cudeco – a once promising mining operation that ran the Rocklands copper mine in rural Queensland at Cloncurry before falling into liquidation – to procure high-grade cobalt, copper and gold concentrate out of tailings.

Court filings lodged in the Queensland Supreme Court in 2022 show Mr Peever’s company, Elution, agreed with Cudeco in December 2018 that it would treat the tailings at the Rocklands mine site, sell the mineral concentrates and pay back a percentage from sales.

If you clicked through to the Elution Metals website in 2022, Mr Peever’s bio asserted he was a “senior finance and commercial executive who has undertaken several high-level roles in the mining and retail industries”.

Screenshots of a now scrubbed Elution Metals website, Tom Peever's company.

“(He) has a deep understanding of precious and non-precious mining operations and markets,” says a grab from the website in November 2022.

But there is no trace of that snippet now. Or Elution Metals’ mission.

Mr Peever, 38, and Elution now face allegations in the Federal Court that they carried out a “false” mining operation to fraudulently claim research and development, and GST refunds.

The Australian Taxation Office has further accused Mr Peever and wife Kirsten of spending the money on their affluent lifestyle, and says they – and a web of about 30 companies – owe the ATO more than $200m. While little is known about Mr Peever, he is the nephew of Australian mining royalty David Peever, the former boss of Rio Tinto in Australia.

It’s also understood a group of early Elution investors are owed large sums of money.

The ATO alleged Mr Peever and his wife spent millions on Queensland property, art, travel and jewellery among other lavish items.

Corporate records show Helena and George Peever, Tom’s parents, were shareholders at one point; it’s unclear if they suffered any loss.

The Peevers and their lawyers have been contacted for comment for this story. They have not responded to three previous requests for comment.

‘Clean energy ambitions’

Elution, of which Mr Peever was the CEO and managing director, aimed to “ethically and responsibly reprocess mine tailings to support the world in developing renewable sources of energy for future generations”.

Tailings are the leftover rocks or soil mining activity spits out, and Mr Peever had high hopes Elution could turn them into treasure.

“Elution Metals has ambitions of being a leading producer of both precious metals and non-precious metals from the reprocessing of mine tailings,” according to the website.

Tom and Kirsten Peever.

Cudeco, once helmed by the colourful Wayne McCrae, suspended operations in August 2018 due to revised ore reserve predictions; receivers and administrators were appointed in July 2019. Liquidators arrived in April 2020 and sold the mine and its tenemants for $29.6m.

Mr Peever’s now deleted LinkedIn profile, claimed he worked as Cudeco’s head of commercial and as chief financial officer between May 2017 and January 2018, according to a screen grab.

Mr Peever asked the Queensland Supreme Court for “preliminary disclosure” from the Cudeco receivers, foreshadowing possible litigation against them in July 2022.

He said Elution “completed its due diligence and was confident that the processing of the tailings (would be) economically viable” on 25 October 2019, in an affidavit lodged with the court and obtained by The Australian.

But one of the receivers, Ian Francis, said the tailings storage facility, which Elution hoped to operate, was “subject to major environmental issues and subject to significant corresponding liabilities when we were appointed”.

“Mining and processing operations at Rocklands mine were suspended in August 2018 due to a combination of operational, maintenance and ore scheduling issues,” he said in his affidavit.

“The realisation of Cudeco’s assets by the receivers was a long and difficult process.

Screenshots of a now deleted Elution Metals website, Tom Peever's company.

“Among the obstacles was a lack of buyer interest (reflecting, as I observed from feedback from bidders and potential bidders, concern about the quality of Rocklands’ resources and reserves (including its ore stockpiles).”

Links between ‘failed’ Cudeco and Elution

Even the receiver, FTI Consulting, told creditors there was no clear explanation why Cudeco collapsed.

Court documents show Cudeco granted Elution a mining lease mortgage over one of its tenements, the tailings storage facility (ML90188), in February 2019.

Kirsten Peever.

A condition of Cudeco’s sale was that Elution removed its registered mortgage over the tailings facility, but it refused to do so and the liquidator was forced to launch proceedings in the Federal Court. Ultimately, Cudeco settled the case with Elution, which agreed to release its securities and paid Mr Peever’s company $535,000.

Previously, Elution had disputed a valuation of the tailings facility at $1 in the final sale of Cudeco.

An expert employed by Elution from PwC allegedly valued the tailings at between $320,000 and $960,000, according to court documents.

And the expert said if tenements, including one that had the majority of assets – which contained the open pit mine, an ore processing plant, the mine’s power plant and ore stockpiles and movable equipment – were sold with another where the tailings were transported via a haul road and the tailings facility, altogether they could be valued at between $14.8m and $15.5m.

The receiver disagreed, and its own expert said appropriate steps were taken to obtain the best possible price for Cudeco’s assets.

ATO freezes Peever assets

It’s unclear if Elution was ever able to re-treat the tailings at Cudeco to realise Mr Peever’s clean energy dream. The Australian has contacted Mr Peever to ask, but he has not responded.

In the meantime, the ATO has alleged Elution, along with about 30 other companies, lodged business activity statements claiming input tax credits for creditable acquisitions spanning April 1, 2018 to September 30, 2022.

It claimed about $76.2m, and got back GST refunds of $61m.

Between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2021 Elution and other companies linked with Mr Peever claimed more than $22m in research and development offsets. They got back about $15m.

Tom Peever.

Via a series of covert and overt probes, the ATO largely disallowed the claims and considered them to be falsely made.

“The company taxpayers collectively have a history of falsely claiming approximately $86m in GST refunds and refundable R&D offsets,” the ATO said in its submissions to court, obtained by The Australian.

“This is related to false claims that creditable acquisitions of some $700m occurred.

“Mr Peever, being the directing mind of the company taxpayers would have been aware of these false claims.”

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Originally published as ‘Miner’ Tom Peever’s renewable energy deal with Cudeco before alleged $200m ATO fraud