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    Lundin Gold’s space-based exploration at Fruta del Norte: targeting insights for mine planners

    February 26, 2026|

    Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

    Lundin Gold’s space-based exploration at Fruta del Norte: targeting insights for mine planners

    First reported on MINING.com

    30 Second Briefing

    Lundin Gold is spending $100 million on 2026 exploration at its Fruta del Norte underground mine in Ecuador, deploying Fleet Space Technologies’ ExoSphere platform to refine drill targeting beneath more than 200 metres of post-mineral volcano-sedimentary cover. ExoSphere integrates metre-scale active seismic imaging with geological and assay data to build layered subsurface models, resolving steep second-order fault structures that control the blind epithermal gold-silver system. The improved structural framework has already generated new high-priority drill targets, supporting plans to sustain 475,000–525,000 oz/y output from 2026–2028 in the remote Condor Mountain jungle terrain.

    Technical Brief

    • Lundin Gold allocated US$100 million specifically to 2026 exploration around Fruta del Norte.
    • Fruta del Norte began commercial production in late 2019 with an initial 12‑year mine life.
    • The mine produced nearly 500,000 oz of gold in 2025, generating projected exports of about US$1.8 billion.
    • Fleet Space’s ExoSphere standardises legacy geological and assay datasets before integrating new active seismic inputs.
    • High‑resolution active seismic was custom‑designed across the licence to complement existing structural and drilling data.
    • Metre‑scale seismic imaging is being used to visualise steep second‑order faults within a broader regional fault zone.
    • Remote Condor Mountain jungle terrain imposes access and logistics constraints, increasing the value of precise drill targeting.
    • Fleet Space’s acquisition of HiSeis in May 2025 expanded its in‑house active seismic capability for hard‑rock mining projects.

    Our Take

    A US$100 million exploration budget at Fruta del Norte in both 2025 and 2026 is unusually high in our gold project coverage and signals Lundin Gold is treating southeastern Ecuador as a multi-decade camp rather than a single 12‑year mine life asset.

    The >200 m post‑mineral volcanic–sedimentary cover at Fruta del Norte places it in the same ‘blind deposit’ category as several deep gold systems in our database where conventional surface geophysics underperforms, which is where Fleet Space’s satellite‑linked sensing and HiSeis’ seismic methods tend to offer the biggest step‑change in target resolution.

    Projected gold concentrate and doré exports of about US$1.8 billion from Fruta del Norte are material at the scale of Ecuador’s economy, so any exploration success in the Condor Mountain range is likely to strengthen the case for further mining‑friendly infrastructure and permitting in that part of Latin America.

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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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