Collective discovers gold, copper at San Antonio project

Canadian explorer Collective Mining (TSX, NYSE: CNL) said it discovered gold and copper during early-stage drilling at its San Antonio project in Colombia.

Hole SAC-11 returned 290.2 metres grading 0.58 gram per tonne gold, 0.17% copper, 3 grams silver and 70 parts per million (ppm) molybdenum from 549 metres downhole, Collective said Monday in a statement.

This included 40.9 metres at 1.02 grams gold, 0.3% copper, 4 grams silver and 100 ppm molybdenum, and 31.2 metres at 0.76 gram gold, 0.27% copper, 5 grams silver and 200 ppm molybdenum.

Led by Continental Gold’s former management team, which discovered and built Colombia’s largest gold mine before being acquired by China’s Zijin Mining Group for $1.4 billion (US$980 million) in 2020, Collective is focusing exploration efforts on large-scale copper-gold porphyry systems in the South American country. San Antonio is located about 4 km east of the company’s flagship Guayabales project, near the Panamerican highway and the multi-million-ounce Marmato mine in Colombia’s Caldas department.

“We view the results as positive for Collective Mining shares as surface exploration work completed in 2024 has now led to the delineation of new porphyry mineralization at San Antonio, adding to the company’s existing mineralized inventory at Guayabales,” Scotia Capital Markets mining analyst Avais Habib said Monday in a note.

Pound zone

The target zone, called Pound, is located within a 2.5-km mineralized gold and copper corridor that hosts four porphyry targets. Each of those targets will be drill-tested this year.

Two larger drill rigs have been contracted to start following up on the discovery hole, Collective said. The first rig will start drilling this week, while the second one is expected to begin operating in about three weeks.

A second test hole, SAC-10, returned 353.9 metres grading 0.4 gram gold, 0.04% copper, 8 grams silver and 10 ppm molybdenum from 389.6 metres downhole, Collective said.

“Detailed surface prospecting and drilling at the San Antonio project have substantially elevated the potential of the project to host a copper-gold rich porphyry system,” Collective executive chairman Ari Sussman said. “Now is the time to become aggressive with drilling as our technical team believes that the SAC-11 hole at the Pound target is close to the porphyry source. With two rigs soon to be operating at Pound, we will look to vector to this source and with some luck, we will find a high-grade porphyry system.”

Collective said in January it had started drilling at San Antonio. Last month, it announced plans to expand drilling activities in Colombia while speeding up various studies in a bid to secure permits faster.

The revised 2025 drill program, covering 70,000 metres instead of 60,000, is the largest in company history. It includes as many as 10 diamond drill rigs – instead of six – at Guayabales and San Antonio. Collective is also aiming to accelerate baseline environmental, hydrological and metallurgical studies.

Collective shares rose 3.4% to $13.53 apiece in early afternoon trading Monday in Toronto. That gave the company a market capitalization of about $1.1 billion.

While targets at Guyabales remain the main valuation driver for Collective Mining shares, “any high-grade discovery with scale at San Antonio would be recognized by the market,” BMO Capital Markets mining analyst Andrew Mikitchook said in note Monday.