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    Fitzroy’s Buen Retiro copper hit in Punta del Cobre: design notes for mine planners

    March 24, 2026|

    Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

    Fitzroy’s Buen Retiro copper hit in Punta del Cobre: design notes for mine planners

    First reported on MINING.com

    30 Second Briefing

    Fitzroy Minerals’ Buen Retiro project in Chile’s Punta del Cobre belt has returned a 384-metre intercept grading 0.22% copper from 4 metres depth in hole BRT-DDH045, including 94 metres at 0.33% and 26 metres at 0.45%, with consistent chalcopyrite mineralisation. The first 100 metres comprise a stockwork with minor breccias, transitioning into a 284-metre Candelaria-style stratiform system, 4 km from the Pan-American Highway and close to grid power. Fitzroy is infill drilling for an initial resource and a planned heap leach copper operation to support further exploration.

    Technical Brief

    • Hole BRT-DDH045 also returned 44 m at 0.32% Cu from 80 m, plus shorter higher-grade runs.
    • Additional sub-intervals include 13 m at 0.4% Cu and 9 m at 0.69% Cu, indicating local grade spikes.
    • Hole BRT-DDH044 intersected mainly low-grade material, with a best interval of 10 m at 0.3% Cu from 142 m.
    • Mineralisation is hosted in a brownfield setting adjacent to the past-producing Manto Negro copper oxide mine.
    • Manto Negro, operated by Pucobre from 2005–2009, produced 34.4 million lb of copper, evidencing leachability in the district.
    • Buen Retiro sits within the Punta del Cobre IOCG belt near Copiapó, close to multiple long-life copper operations.
    • Lundin Mining’s nearby Candelaria mine, the analogue for the stratiform system, produced 145,000 t Cu last year.
    • Proximity to the Pan-American Highway (4 km) and existing grid power materially reduces haul road and powerline CAPEX for a heap leach start-up.

    Our Take

    Buen Retiro’s Candelaria-style mineralisation in the Punta del Cobre belt sits in the same northern Chile copper corridor where Lundin Mining is doubling down via Caserones and Los Helados, suggesting juniors like Fitzroy could become logical bolt-on targets for established Andean operators looking for satellite feed or optionality.

    The long, moderate-grade copper intervals at Buen Retiro, combined with existing heap-leach history at the nearby Manto Negro mine, point towards a potential low-to-medium capex development route that could be more resilient in the kind of 10% copper price pullbacks noted in the article’s macro context.

    In our database of 1086 Mining stories, copper in northern Chile consistently appears alongside infrastructure advantages; Buen Retiro’s proximity to the Pan-American Highway and Pacific coast aligns with that pattern, which typically shortens development timelines compared with more remote Latin American copper projects.

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    Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.

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