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Big capital investment in Tintina Mines shows Chilean copper is drawing all the right attention

• Chile-focused copper player Tintina Mines secures C$91m investment anchored by Sumitomo and Gignac family
• Investment highlights strong interest in Chile’s copper resources, which already makes it the world’s top producer
• ASX companies operating in Chile are well positioned to benefit from the coming copper crunch

Chile is beginning to capture resource investment again as demonstrated by Toronto-listed Tintina Mines (TTSV:TTX) securing a C$91m investment from Japanese giant Sumitomo Corporation and prominent mining investors the Gignac family.

Sumitomo – a leading Global Fortune 500 integrated trading and business investment company – and the Gignac family, the founders of G Mining Services, are equal partners in a newly formed investment vehicle that is anchoring the offer of shares priced at C68c per share.

Other cornerstone participants include leading gold-focused royalty and streaming company Franco-Nevada Corporation and a group of strategic investors assembled by G Mining Capital, a Canadian mining investment platform that again counts Sumitomo and the Gignac family as principal shareholders.

Proceeds from the placement will be used to advance the Domeyko Sulfuros copper-gold project towards a final investment decision.

What’s notable is that G Mining Capital was established specifically to source and evaluate high-quality copper opportunities before advancing them through development and into production.

That Sumitomo and the Gignac family chose to invest in the Domeyko Sulfuros is a clear sign that Chile’s mineral endowment is still very much on investment radars.

Chilean mineral riches

Chile is already well-known for being rich in resources, a point highlighted by the country being the world’s largest producer of the red metal despite a 13.8% fall in production year-on-year to 399,954t in April 2026.

The country is known for hosting bulk tonnage porphyry deposits that deliver copper (and gold) over a long-time.

Notable examples include BHP’s giant Escondida mine in the Atacama Desert that features two open pits that collectively produce about 1Mt of copper annually and is expected to operate until 2078.

Others are the Collahuasi surface mine that is co-owned by Glencore that could operate until 2106 and state-owned company Corporacion Nacional del Cobre de Chile’s El Teniente mine.

BHP and its partners at Escondida have demonstrated their willingness to keep the mine operating strongly despite grade declines and increased ore hardness by continuing to invest in growth and modernisation plans.

In mid-May 2026, the mining giant submitted a US$5bn plan that will underpin operations at the mine by installing a new concentrator that will enable it to maintain an overall processing capacity of 460,000t per day of ore.

This will keep copper production at currently approved levels.

With copper experiencing a growing supply crunch, that sent prices on the London Metals Exchange past the US$14,000/t mark in mid-May before pulling back down to the still respectable current price of about US$13,825/t, it isn’t too much of a stretch to believe that interest in Chile’s proven copper bounty will only grow.

Signs are already emerging with Lowell Resources Fund (ASX:LRT) telling Stockhead’s Josh Chiat in mid-May that a massive copper squeeze was coming soon and that punters are looking for upstream investments.

ASX Chilean copper hopefuls

So just who are some of the ASX companies operating in Chile that could benefit from this interest in copper?

Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) has the good fortune to have its Costa Fuego copper-gold project sit right next to Domeyko Sulfuros, which would by itself get fans of nearology all hot and bothered.

However, the picture becomes even more attractive once the company’s extensive work on the project is taken into account.

Starting with the Productora deposit, the company subsequently added Cortadera which proved to be a significant copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry discovery, and more recently La Verde in November 2024.

Exploration at La Verde has defined a mineralised footprint stretching out over 1000m by 750m and a depth of 400m that includes a potential high-grade starter pit.

Exploration has also identified three nearby lookalike copper-gold targets that highlight potential for a broader, district-scale porphyry system.

The broader Costa Fuego project itself is the subject of a pre-feasibility study envisioning an operation capable of producing 116,000t of copper equivalent material annually for 20 years.

This will deliver life-of-mine free cash flow of US$3.86bn to generate NPV of US$1.2bn and IRR of 19% while payback on the Capex of US$1.27bn is expected in 4.5 years.

It uses an assumed long-term copper price of US$4.30/lb and gold price of US$2280/oz with Hot Chili noting that every 10c increase in the copper price would increase NPV by about US$100m.

With LME copper actively trading between US$6.30 and US$6.65 per pound and gold currently commanding about US$4483/oz, these numbers are looking decidedly conservative even without taking into account the promising wide, near-surface mineralisation emerging at La Verde.

Though Hot Chili has attracted investment from Glencore back in 2021 that gives the major miner a 7.5% stake, the recent Tintina Mines placement highlights just what the company could draw.

The company has a significantly larger measured and indicated resource of 798Mt grading 0.45% copper equivalent compared to Tintina’s 101Mt at 0.51% CuEq, existing ore reserves of 502Mt at 0.43% CuEq while Tintina has none and a PFS that provides greater certainty compared to the Canadian company’s preliminary economic assessment.

Hot Chili has also secured access to seawater and power along with a memorandum of understanding for port access while Tintina still needs to negotiate for water, power and port access.

Despite this, it had a market capitalisation of $420m (C$392m) as of June 3, 2026, somewhat lower than Tintina’s C$504m on an undiluted basis.

FMR Resources (ASX:FMR) recently signed conditional agreements that consolidate a number of key mining concessions and contiguous exploration concession applications into the wholly-owned La Lorena project in a highly prospective copper-gold belt in Chile.

The 9km by 6km La Lorena project sits in a highly fertile Eocene-aged magmatic belt that hosts numerous major porphyry copper deposits including the world-class Escondida deposit.

It is also ~30km northeast of FMR’s Llahuin joint venture project.

Previous small-scale mining at the La Martuca, Los Morados and Esperanza prospects confirmed that copper and gold-bearing hydrothermal systems are present.

First pass underground rock chip sampling carried out by the company returned up to 4.11% copper at La Martuca and 2.42% copper at Los Morados while recent follow-up sampling returned up to 5.32% copper and 0.08g/t gold at La Martuca and up to 1.91g/t gold and 1.31% copper at Esperanza.

Despite its favourable regional architecture, known mineralisation and extensive untested ground, the La Lorena project area has never been tested with modern exploration methodology.

This is a shortcoming that FMR is looking to address with its plans to carry out geological mapping, surface sampling and geophysical surveys that will fast track the project towards an initial drilling program in Q4 2026.

A first-pass drone magnetic survey has already identified multiple large intrusive targets.

Over at the Llahuin project, assays from drilling confirmed that broad copper–gold-molybdenum anomalism is associated with porphyry intrusive phases and stockwork breccias.

The results support the geological interpretation that drilling has intersected the mineralised
intrusive footprint of an extensive porphyry system.

Lodestar Minerals (ASX:LSR) holds the Los Loros and Three Saints projects in Chile.

Three Saints sits within a recognised metallogenic belt that hosts several IOCG deposits, including the Candelaria open pit copper-gold-silver mine about 65km away that produced 145,000t copper and 80,000oz of gold equivalent in 2025.

It also benefits from established infrastructure as it is just 35km from the coast and 20km from a major highway.

Native copper, chalcopyrite and associated sulphides have been visually observed from a depth of 219m to 510m in the second diamond hole (L3SDD004) drilled in its current program.

These features, which are consistent with IOCG mineralisation, were noted 700m from the maiden hole, indicating the potential for a system of significant scale is present.

Drilling at L3SDD004 is ongoing, with a current planned depth of 600m and potential extension depending on geological observations.

Los Loros sits on the same Coastal Cordillera porphyry belt that hosts operating mines and undeveloped deposits such as Costa Fuego and Llahuín.

It has never been systematically explored using modern techniques with historical work being episodic, shallow and commodity-price driven. Most drilling has focused on near-surface copper oxide zones suitable only for small-scale mining.