Fitzroy Minerals (TSXV: FTZ; US-OTC: FTZFF) has reported further broad, shallow copper mineralization along the Tenorita trend at its Buen Retiro project in Chile, as the company moves toward an initial resource estimate and prefeasibility study ahead of planned production in 2028.

The latest results included hole BRT-DDH072, which intersected 111.9 metres grading 0.97% copper from 21.1 metres depth, including 18 metres grading 1.59% copper from 84 metres, Fitzroy said Thursday in a news release. Hole BRT-DDH070 returned 147.7 metres grading 0.41% copper from 26.3 metres, including 47 metres grading 0.88% copper from 113 metres.

“Buen Retiro continues to deliver excellent results and several of the fifteen drill holes reported today reflect wide zones of mineralization in leachable material close to surface,” President and CEO Merlin Marr-Johnson said in the release. “Note that the best drill hole reported today, drill hole 72, is to the east of drill hole 70, confirming consistent shallow mineralization for about 300 metres across the widest part of the Tenorita area.”

The assays add to a series of results reported this year as Fitzroy works toward a first resource and economic study for the brownfield project. The company is evaluating a heap-leach operation that could supply nearby solvent extraction-electrowinning facilities — a processing route commonly used in Chile for oxide copper deposits and one that typically carries lower capital costs than conventional flotation. In April, Fitzroy signed a letter of intent with listed Chilean miner Pucobre outlining a potential joint development route, including access to an existing processing plant about 90 km away.

Four rigs active at Buen Retiro

Fitzroy Minerals shares rose 5.3% to C$0.40 apiece on Friday morning in Toronto, giving the company a market value of about C$130 million ($92 million). The stock has traded between C$0.24 and C$0.73 over the past 52 weeks.

The prefeasibility study is expected by mid-next year under an earn-in agreement with the project’s current equal owners, Pucobre and private mining partnership Sociedad Contractual Minera Buen Retiro. The companies have said the likely eventual partnership would be 70% Fitzroy and 30% Pucobre.

Fitzroy currently has four rigs operating at Buen Retiro, and the team aims to finish drilling out the 1.7-km-long Tenorita trend in August. The project is located about 1,000 km north of Santiago and 60 km south of Copiapó in Chile’s Atacama Region, part of a country that is the world’s largest copper producer. It spans 132 sq. km in the Punta del Cobre iron oxide copper-gold belt and includes the past-producing Manto Negro mine.

Candelaria area context

Manto Negro produced 34.4 million lb. of copper between 2005 and 2009 under Pucobre. The project is near Lundin Mining’s (TSX: LUN) Candelaria mine, which produced 145,000 tonnes of copper last year.

Fitzroy plans to drill another 9,000 metres this year to upgrade the Tenorita zone into measured, indicated and inferred resources for the prefeasibility study, outline inferred resources elsewhere on the property and test new exploration targets. Since the start of February, the company has completed 78 diamond drill holes totaling 13,036 metres.

Earlier results this year included 384 metres grading 0.23% copper from four metres in hole BRT-DDH045, reported in March, which Fitzroy said confirmed a large Candelaria-style mineralized system. June assays returned 59 metres grading 1.73% copper, including 12 metres at 5.39% copper, strengthening the company’s near-surface resource target.