Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Sunstone Metals (ASX:STM), Managing Director Patrick Duffy
Lel Smits: Sunstone Metals is advancing the Bramadeiros and El Palmar gold copper projects in Ecuador. At Bramadeiros, every hole in its latest resource growth drilling program intersected mineralization outside the existing resource. Sunstone Metals has also lifted expected gold and copper recoveries through new metallurgical test work and is preparing an updated resource estimate for release in the coming quarter.
Ahead of presenting its stocks on location, I’m joined by Patrick Duffy to discuss the drilling results and the resource update and opportunity ahead for the company in Ecuador. Patrick, welcome to the Stock Network.
Patrick Duffy: Thanks, Lel, it’s great to be here today.
Lel Smits: Great to have you on. And can you start by explaining to us what makes the Bramadeiros your flagship project? And also, why do you think southern Ecuador is an attractive place to explore for gold and copper?
Patrick Duffy: Absolutely. So Bramadeiros is in southern Ecuador.
It’s currently got three point six million ounces in resource, but we expect that to grow to at least 10 million ounces. So an enormous deposit that you don’t find on the ASX very often, but underlines the huge potential we have in Ecuador. We are currently drilling at Bramadeiros.
We’re looking to expand the resource shortly, but ultimately it will put us on a pathway to delivering this huge oil waddy and getting us closer to development. The project is in a valley. It’s these contiguous porphyry systems that come up the surface.
It’s in a valley that has no protected forests, no indigenous communities, has access to infrastructure with the highway that runs through the concession, water, power, and there’s no sort of downstream impacts. So we get great support from the community. It’s quite an isolated area and a very good place to be able to develop a large scale project.
In southern Ecuador, there’s two major mining operations. One’s owned by Lundin Gold, which has the Fruta del Norte asset, which has to be one of the most valuable single assets in the world. The company is worth $25 billion and also a huge copper mine.
So there’s a mining culture in the south that enables projects to get developed and be able to deliver on the full potential. Excellent. And if we can look closer really at the drilling, every hole in your latest drilling program intersected mineralisation outside the existing resource.
Lel Smits: What do these results indicate really for you about the potential size of the Bramadeiros system? And also what are your near-term catalysts here?
Patrick Duffy: Yeah, sure. So that mineralisation is from surface all the way to the end of the hole. So 27 holes, every one of them fully mineralised, which is quite remarkable.
Demonstrates that it will be a very straightforward, easy open pit mining operation with virtually no pre-strip and very little stripping ratio. We’ve been looking to extend the current resource pitch hole, which is 3.6 million ounces with the drilling, but also two new discoveries, part of this porphyry chain of deposits that will one day be just a massive open pit operation. So in the next couple of months, we’ll have a significant resource upgrade.
We’ve got further drilling coming. Depending on what comes out of that resource upgrade, we may look to update the scoping study in the coming months. But also we’re just about to start drilling at El Palma, which we’d love to talk about as well.
Lel Smits: Absolutely. And while on El Palma, you have said, as you just mentioned, restarting drilling at the project, of course, in northern Ecuador. Can you go into more details here? Also explain what the focus is at El Palma?
Patrick Duffy: Yeah, so this is a very exciting period.
El Palma sits on this fault system called the Tawachu Fault and nearby there’s a huge copper project, a billion ton system called Lurimagua. And further away on the fault is the Solgold Cascabel project. That’s a three billion ton copper system sold recently for just under two billion dollars.
And we believe that El Palma is the third major discovery here in this fault area. We have a target of 15 to 45 million ounces at El Palma, so a huge ore body. We know we have a resource at surface, which will be started as an open pit.
But these exploration holes that we are doing now is deep holes that are targeting the deeper system that has the potential to replicate the size and scale and success that we’ve seen at these other two projects at Cascabel and Solgold. So it could be a very, very exciting phase and a huge catalyst going forward for the company. And again, if we can demonstrate something similar to Cascabel, it has the potential to completely change the company.
Lel Smits: Well, Patrick, I appreciate the update from Sunstone Metals and look forward to hearing more when you’re on stage at Stocks on Location.
Patrick Duffy: Absolutely. Thanks.
Lel Smits: Thanks.
Ends