Lundin/BHP’s first Filo copper resource ranks Chile project among world’s largest

Lundin Mining (TSX: LUN) says an initial mineral resource estimate shows its jointly owned Filo del Sol project in Chile’s Atacama region would rank among the world’s 10 largest producing copper mines.

The project is held under a 50/50 venture with BHP (ASX: BHP), which was formed after the companies spent about C$4 billion ($2.9 billion) in January to acquire Canada’s Filo Corp. 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 are being integrated into a single mining complex for cost optimization.

Lundin’s estimate, released Sunday, 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. Lundin 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 ounces).

CEO Jack Lundin 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.

Oxide resources

Filo 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 on Sunday 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 would make Vicuña one of the highest grade undeveloped open-pit copper projects in the world, according to Lundin. It would also rank as one of the largest gold and silver resources globally.

Compared to previous estimates, the total measured and indicated resources increased by 29%, 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,” Lundin said.

Lundin Mining rose 0.3% to C$11.71 in Toronto Monday morning. This pushed the company’s market capitalization to about $10.1 billion.