Lundin copper-gold systems in Ecuador: district-scale mine cues for planners
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Lundin Gold has outlined a large intrusive complex with multiple shallow copper-gold porphyry systems near its Fruta del Norte mine in Ecuador, including Sandia hole SND-2025-383 with 603 m at 0.68% Cu, 0.1 g/t Au, 2.85 g/t Ag and 16.32 ppm Mo from 27 m. A newly identified fifth porphyry centre, Chontas, 7 km south of the main deposit, extends the porphyry corridor to at least 10 km, while Trancaloma hole TRL-2025-340 returned 945 m at 0.33% Cu from 152 m. Lundin plans 133,000 m of drilling in 2026 at Fruta del Norte, budgeted at $85 million, to support a potential south-zone mine decision and district-scale copper-gold evaluation.
Technical Brief
- Castillo zone hole CAS-2025-376 returned 48 m at 1.0% Cu, 0.33 g/t Au, 3.2 g/t Ag, 3.81 ppm Mo from 258 m.
- Trancaloma TRL-2025-340 includes a higher-grade internal interval of 202 m at 0.52% Cu, 0.13 g/t Au, 2.31 g/t Ag and 19.14 ppm Mo from 895 m.
- Eight of the 16 best grade–width intercepts on the Fruta del Norte property have been drilled in the south zone over the last two years, supporting a potential expansion case.
- Of this, 100,000 m are allocated to near-mine targets, focusing on the porphyry corridor and high-grade epithermal gold systems adjacent to existing infrastructure.
- District-scale porphyry and epithermal exploration immediately adjacent to an operating high-grade underground mine offers potential to leverage existing plant, tailings and access for any future copper-gold development.
Our Take
With copper and gold as key commodities, Lundin Gold’s Ecuador results land in a crowded space in our database, but few of the 498 copper‑ and gold‑tagged pieces combine such large single‑asset head grades with a multi‑kilometre porphyry corridor, which could give Fruta del Norte outsized optionality versus typical single‑deposit Latin American gold mines.
The planned US$100 million Ecuador exploration spend for 2026 is unusually aggressive relative to most Latin American gold producers in our coverage and signals that Lundin Gold is treating the broader Fruta del Norte land package more like a district‑scale copper‑gold play than a mature, harvest‑mode asset.
The copper‑heavy intercepts at Sandia, Castillo and Trancaloma come as our recent copper coverage (e.g. the 12 February piece on the SAVANT Global Copper Smelting Index) highlights weak smelting utilisation, implying that if Lundin can outline a sizeable copper resource here, it may be well‑timed to benefit from any medium‑term tightening in concentrate supply once smelter activity normalises.
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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