A new resource estimate for the Filo del Sol project in Chile’s Atacama region has confirmed its potential to be a part of one of the world’s largest copper, gold and silver resources, says the project’s new joint owner Lundin Mining (TSX: LUN).
Filo del Sol was previously held by Canada’s Filo Corp., which had advanced the project to a pre-feasibility stage based only on the oxide resources at surface. A technical report from 2023 outlined a potential 13-year mine operation with average annual production of 66,000 tonnes of copper, 168,000 oz. of gold and 9.26 million oz. of silver.
Lundin’s estimate includes a first resource for the Filo del Sol high-grade sulphide core, totalling 606 million tonnes in the measured and indicated categories with a copper-equivalent grade of 1.14%, for contained metal of 4.5 million tonnes of copper, 9.6 million oz. of gold and 259 million oz. of silver. It also updated the oxide resource to 434 million tonnes at 0.34% copper (1.5 million tonnes), 0.28 g/t gold (3.9 million oz.) and 2.5 g/t silver (35 million oz.).
Significant greenfield project
Jack Lundin, president and CEO, hailed Filo del Sol as “one of the most significant greenfield discoveries in the last 30 years,” with potential to be developed into “a world-class deposit” to support a globally ranked mining complex.
The project is held under a 50/50 venture with BHP (ASX: BHP), which was formed after the companies’ joint acquisition of Filo Corp. last year. The venture, called Vicuña, also includes Lundin’s more advanced Josemaría project in San Juan, Argentina, located about 11 km away. As part of the JV arrangement, the two projects would be integrated into a single mining complex for cost optimization.
As part of the resource update, Lundin also released an estimate for the Josemaría project, totalling 196 million tonnes measured and indicated at 0.73% copper equivalent, for contained metal of 978,000 tonnes of copper, 2.4 million oz. of gold and 11 million oz. of silver. The project has a previous feasibility study that a 19-year mine yielding average annual production of 136,000 tonnes of copper, 231,000 oz. of gold and 1.16 million oz. of silver.
The combined resources, according to Lundin, would make Vicuña one of the highest grade undeveloped open pit copper projects in the world, and also one of the largest gold and silver resources globally.
Compared to its previous estimates, the total measured and indicated resources increased by 29% over, while the inferred resource grew by 7.5 times. The company sees further expansion potential in the Filo del Sol resource, as the mineralization has only been defined over a total area of 10 sq. km.
“The mineral resource is a key milestone and will form the basis for the integrated technical report that will outline a combined project, this report is on schedule for completion in the first quarter of 2026,’ Jack Lundin said in a press release.
