Good day, and welcome to the Vicuna Mineral Resource Estimate Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Jack Lundin, President and CEO of Lundin Mining. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Operator. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining Lundin Mining's conference call. Yesterday, we announced an initial resource for the Vicuna project with our partner, BHP. A copy of the mineral resource estimate and presentation are available on our website under our Investor section. All figures presented today are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Before we start the presentation, as always, I'd like to remind our listeners that this call will contain forward-looking information. I would encourage you to read the cautionary note that accompanies this press release, along with other relevant filings on SEDAR. These documents are available on our website as well.
Today, joining me on the call are members of our executive team, Teitur Poulsen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Tim Walmsley, our Vice President of Exploration; and Cole Mooney, our Director of Resource Geology, who will walk us through the resource estimation during today's call. Filo del Sol has become one of the most significant greenfield discoveries in the last 30 years. First and foremost, I want to congratulate the Filo team for such a remarkable discovery in advancing the deposit to where it is today. A true testament of perseverance and continued focus over multiple decades has gotten us to this point. Included within this mineral resource estimate are an initial resource estimate for the Filo del Sol sulfides, an updated mineral resource estimate for the Filo del Sol oxides, and an updated mineral resource estimate for Josemaria .
The initial mineral resource highlights Vicuna as one of, if not the largest, copper, gold, and silver projects globally today when taking the measured, indicated, and inferred metal content together. The total resource contains 38 million tons of contained copper, 81 million ounces of gold, and just under 1.5 billion ounces of silver. The scale is impressive. However, as we will show, not only the size and scale of Vicuna, but also the elevated grades that exist in the core of the deposits make it truly unique. At Filo del Sol, there is over 600 million tons at 1.14% copper equivalent in the measured and indicated category, containing 4.5 million tons of copper. At Jose Maria, there is a near-surface high-grade core of 200 million tons at 0.73% copper equivalent, containing 1 million tons of copper, which will likely contribute to the initial years of mining.
This image shows the proximity of Jose Maria to Filo del Sol. Both deposits complement each other in a way that allows for economies of scale, sharing key infrastructure and supporting a multi-phased, large-scale development strategy. With that introduction, I'll now hand it over to Cole Mooney, our Director of Resource Geology, to walk us through the mineral resource estimate in more detail.
Thank you, Jack. Good morning, everyone. I'll now walk us through some of the highlights for the Vicuna District Mineral Resource. We will be filing a technical report to SEDAR within 45 days, which will include a lot more of the technical information that accompanies this estimate. First, we are now presenting this as the Vicuna District Mineral Resource, which is made up of a number of deposits. There are the Filo del Sol sulfides, which is the Maiden Resource Declaration, containing 1.2 billion tons of M&I and 6 billion tons in the inferred category. We're also declaring the—we're also updating the Filo del Sol copper oxide, gold oxide, as well as the high-grade silver deposits.
We are also presenting an update to Jose Maria for a combined Vicuna District total of 3.6 billion tons in the measured and indicated categories and almost 8 billion tons in the inferred category. The Filo del Sol mineral resource estimate is based on 400 drill holes and approximately 200,000 m of drilling. The geological model was inherited from the Filo team, reviewed internally, and forms the basis of the mineral resource estimate. The resource domains are based on significant geometallurgical test work and based on processing destination. The conceptual pit is based on maximum slope angles of 40 degrees with a maximum pit depth of 1,300 m for an average strip ratio of 1.7 to 1. Metal prices are $4.43 copper, $2,185 gold, and $28 silver. Next slide, please. Here we are presenting the highlight of the mineral resource today, which is the Maiden Sulfide Resource Declaration.
This is, as I mentioned, 1.2 billion tons in the M&I category and an additional 7 billion tons in the inferred category. This deposit is currently open in all directions. Still, to the south, in particular, underneath Tamberias and Flamenco, we've intersected positive copper, gold, porphyry mineralization. Just at a drill, it's currently not drilled at a density to support resource declaration. To the north is a similar story. As you can see, the mineral resource comes up pretty much to the edge of available drilling to the Bonita zone. The same story to the east and west, where the resource is currently open and just limited by drill density. As Jack mentioned, the high-grade core here is one of the stories that we want to highlight.
We have 600 million tons in the M&I category, plus an additional 860 million tons in the inferred category for a total of around 1% copper equivalent that is relatively early in the mine life, so representing an early opportunity for strong cash flow. In addition to the high-grade Aurora zone, we also have a substantial high-grade oxide zone with approximately 200 million tons of above 1% copper equivalent. These are obviously shallow and early in the mine plan, and this will remain a significant focus of the exploration and infill drill programs for the next several years. The Jose Maria mineral resource has been updated. This is an update to the 2020 Feasibility Study based on 54 additional drill holes and 27,000 additional meters of drilling from the 2021-2022 infill drilling campaign, which increases the measured and indicated resources by 43% to 1,650 million tons.
This model was based on extensive geometallurgical test work. Jose Maria additionally has an early high-grade opportunity with approximately 200 million tons in the M&I category at 0.73 copper equivalent. This zone is a secondary sulfide zone with favorable geometallurgical characteristics and also early in the mine's life with approximately half of this material coming within the first five years. This slide is just to highlight the full potential of the Filo del Sol deposit. As I mentioned, it's still open in all directions. The drill program for the next few years will be focusing on building resources to the south, to the north, to the east and west, as well as in support of our studies. We'll be working on a number of studies to advance the project, including geotechnical drilling and additional geometallurgical drilling. This slide's just to highlight the current resource limits in relation to the pit.
As you can see, the pit's quite large, and the resource is limited by drilling. In particular, to the northeast, around holes 104, 85, and 108 that have all intersected over 500 m of above half a gram copper equivalent. This area is just not drilled at a density yet to convert to resources, but that will remain as an early opportunity. In addition, on the western margin, we've recently encountered some very positive gold and silver-rich sulfide veins that will remain a focus of test work for the next upcoming season. Obviously, as you can see here, as we advance the program around the pit, the strip ratio here will improve significantly. Thank you, Cole. Moving along to put the size and scale of this discovery into context, the following slides will walk through some comparative analysis here to show the uniqueness of the Vicuna project.
Since the initial oxide discovery back in 2000, Filo del Sol has really emerged as a generational discovery, highlighted by the drilling of the Aurora zone in 2021. Alongside Jose Maria, which was discovered back in 2004, both of these deposits now form the Vicuna project and represent the largest greenfield copper discovery in the past 30 years. The figure to the bottom of the screen here shows resource data collected from the S&P Capital IQ platform. The figure shows the relative measured, indicated, and inferred resource size of initial discoveries from 1990 until present day. You can see Vicuna is stacking up next to world-class mining operations like Collahuasi, Cerro Verde, and, of course, the world's largest mining operation, Escondida. In this page, we're showing how Vicuna measured up against existing copper mining operations.
The bar chart on the left represents contained, measured, and indicated copper content and inferred copper content stacked on top. This includes underground and open-pit mining operations on the left here. The Vicuna resource is definitely well-positioned amongst the world's biggest existing copper mines, and you can see the 2024 copper production below the name of the mines in this chart here. The bar chart on the right is showing the measured and indicated grades of the world's largest open-pit mining operations, excluding underground. We have taken copper grades from the Filo high-grade core, the Filo overall resource, and the Jose Maria high-grade core for comparative analysis. In the light-shaded bars, given the significant amount of gold and silver, the copper equivalent grade is shown on the screen. This is important context as it is outlined here in the next two pages of this presentation.
If you take the same basket of mining operations from the last slide and only look at the contained precious metal, you can see how Vicuna measures. The chart on the left showing the contained, measured, and indicated gold content with inferred stacked on top, and the chart on the right showing the contained, measured, and indicated silver content with the inferred stacked on top. When you compare the gold and silver to the largest copper mines by production, Vicuna moves up to number two for gold and number two for silver. Now, if we look at this final slide here, we now compare the precious metal content to the largest gold and silver mining operations globally. This shows Vicuna holds its position not only amongst the largest copper mines of the world, but also the largest precious metal mining operations as well.
We believe that these results and the results of this resource strongly validate last year's decision to jointly form Vicuna Corp with our industry-leading partners at BHP. The resource's size, scale, and high-grade core highlight a unique and very truly exciting opportunity for all the companies and all the stakeholders that are involved. With that, I'd like to open up the floor for questions to the audience on the call today. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star o ne one again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question will come from the line of Orest Wowkodaw, Scotiabank . Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, and congratulations on the resource. I'm wondering, given the sheer massive scale of Filo and the upgraded resource at Jose, does this impact or change any way you're thinking about a development plan in terms of phase one at Jose? I'm wondering whether this perhaps opens the door to scale up phase one, or are the partners still sort of targeting sort of similar throughput for phase one? I'm wondering also if there's any impact to the infrastructure that might be behind it in order to accommodate future expansions.
Hi, Orest. Thanks for the compliment, and thanks for your question. It's a good one. Obviously, the size of this resource is significant, and I think what we'll be chasing in these initial phases is the high-grade core that Cole was walking us through. I would say that this resource validates our previous thinking of how we're going to phase the development plan. It doesn't necessarily change significantly the strategy for us. Because of its scale, we need to build it out in a multi-phased approach. Because of the definition around Josem aria and the Filo oxides, a further definition on those two parts of the deposit, we'll continue advancing those as the earlier parts of this overall project. Phase one, when we were looking at Josem aria also as a standalone, I mean, it was significant in terms of scale.
I think phase one is validated. It's still large-scale in nature, and this further solidifies our plan to build it out in a multi-phased execution plan.
Are you saying phase one sort of similar sort of no material changes to scale?
Yeah, we'll be chasing similar size throughput for phase one.
Okay. And just as a follow-up, I mean, given the just massive amount of gold and silver that are contained in the deposits, would you consider streaming a part of that to help with respect to financing the CapEx? I'm just wondering what your approach is to that.
Yeah, hi, Orest. It's Tiger here. Yeah, I mean, with our deposit of this price and scale, all options are available, really. We are working with BHP to optimize the financing plan around the whole development. I mean, obviously, we as a company are starting off from a great position, being effectively net debt zero after closing the European sale. We have the choice either to fund this from our respective parent company balance sheets, or we can look at other avenues, such as you were mentioning, or export credit facilities, or indeed a combination of all of those. No firm decisions at this point, but it's just good to know that we have all those options available on the table for now.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Ralph M. Profiti with Stifel. Your line is open.
Thanks, operator. Jack and team, thanks very much for the presentation. Really appreciate it. I have a technical question on how well-defined the sort of supergene enrichment and the high-grade core delineation is at Filo sulfides. I am just wondering if they are encountering some transition ores that will lead to high degrees of recovery variability during that time. Similarly, just on that grade-to-recovery relationship, what would be a good assumption for copper recoveries in the high-grade core?
Thanks. Yeah, I can answer that one. At Filo del Sol, the majority of the high-grade zone is drilled to indicated confidence. We have decent drill density there. Regarding the transition zone, we recently received results from a recent geometallurgical test program. We are starting to understand that and how we can incorporate that in the model, as well as the upcoming drill programs. Geomet selection will remain a focus. We will have some information and ability to model that coming soon. What was the other question?
Recoveries and recoveries.
Recoveries. Yeah. Generally speaking, the high-grade core—Dustin can probably confirm this—recovers slightly better. There is a positive relationship with copper grade and recovery.
Okay. So perhaps 1%-2% enhancement.
Could be in that range. I mean, obviously, we're still going through, but yeah, definitely higher grade will result in higher recovery, as you see kind of in traditional deposits like this.
Okay. Great. Great. I see in the text of the press release strip ratios and how sort of the pit slope angles relate to that 45% at Josem aria and then coming down to 40% at Filo del Sol. I am just wondering, what's the strip ratio for the high-grade core in the Filo sulfides and how we should be thinking about that blended strip ratio of 1.7?
Hey, Ralph. Thanks for the question. It's Jack here. We have also got Dustin Smiley, our Director of Mining for Vicuna Corp, present with us on the call today. I will hand it over to him to give us a little summary of that.
Yeah. In terms of the strip ratio around the high-grade core, obviously, the target for the mine will be to get into the high-grade core as quickly as possible, as Jack mentioned. We do not actually have a specific—we did not actually look at what the strip ratio is for that specific pit. We are going to try to dive into that high grade as quickly as we can. At the end of the day, we will be optimizing based on economics. We will pursue an elevated cutoff, no doubt. We will be trying to push as much throughput as we can into the high grade as quickly as we can.
Okay. All right. I appreciate your answers very much. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Matt Greene with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Hi, Jack and team. Congratulations on today's release. Cole, one for you. What's the rationale behind applying top cuts to Filo high grade, but not the Josem aria? If you can give me any sort of sense as to what that capping, how that influences the high grade.
Sure. Yeah. Filo just has a more extreme grade distribution than Jose Maria does. Josem aria is a lower grade deposit in general, not requiring as much top cutting. In addition, Jose was built with a conditional simulation model, which I won't get into the details of that, but just by its nature, it doesn't require top cutting as much. Filo, we did use, actually, honestly, a relatively conservative approach when it comes to top cutting. Actually, if you look at the long section of the high-grade core shot, you can see the space between Aurora and I guess it's Refugio. Yeah, Refugio. The drill density drops off there just based on our choice to be a little bit conservative. As we drill that area to indicated confidence, our high grades will be allowed to see a little bit further, and we expect that zone to fill up.
We just wanted to take for an initial resource of this magnitude, we just wanted to be a little bit conservative, especially in our inferred confidence zones around the high grades.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. The NSR assumptions for Filo, what's driving the wider range on processing costs?
I'll hand this one over to Dustin.
Yeah. It is early stages, of course, for the development plan and the production plan at Filo. We do have some ideas around some different processing methods, particularly around the oxides. The sulfides would be processed completely different from that. Essentially, it is just different processing methods that we have used to inform that NSR at this time.
Okay. That's great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Ioannis Masvoulas with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Yes. Thanks very much for the presentation and well done, Jack and team, on the update today. Just a few questions left on my side. First, on Jose Maria, you managed to grow the mineral resource by 38%, but I think you said that you do not contemplate a higher throughput. Could you remind us what is the throughput you have in mind and whether a fourth processing line is an option or not? Also, what sort of mine life are you contemplating on the back of the update? I will stop here for the first one.
Yeah. Thanks, Ioannis. So what we were looking at for kind of a phase one of the sulfide, similar to what we had in the original Feasibility Study for Josem aria. I think we had telegraphed that while the Feasibility had around 150,000 tons per day for the concentrator, we're now looking at moving that up to around 175,000 tons per day. We'll see if we can push more depending on a lot of variables like rock hardness and other abilities to kind of get into the high-grade core quicker. I think that right there demonstrates that that is a large-scale phase one operation. We're comfortable with that and think that that's going to lead to a quick payback. We're still working through what the initial years of the mine plan will look like for Josem aria.
Obviously, with this resource, if we looked at it as a standalone, it's an over 20-year mine life. We anticipate that much sooner than that, we'll be moving into kind of the Filo portion of the Vicuna project.
Okay. That's very clear. When we look at the assumed metallurgical recoveries for Filo del Sol, they seem to be a fair bit lower than some of the other sulfide operations, even I guess lower than Josem aria. Can you talk about the degree of confidence on metallurgical testing, and do you see any potential to improve on the recoveries that you highlighted today across copper and the other metals?
Yeah. It's Dustin here again. Yes, you're right. The way our very early preliminary recovery equations have manifested in the resource are a little bit lower than anticipated and perhaps a little bit lower than what test work is indicating. We expect that there is a pretty high potential that that could boost. As Cole mentioned earlier, we are starting up a new phase of metallurgical testing. As we understand the process definition better, we'll be able to update that. Right now, it's looking a little low, and we're optimistic.
Okay. Okay. Understood. Just the last one from me. Given all the work you've done on the Filo deposits since the JV was formed, can you talk about your latest understanding around the arsenic content and the need at future time to look at some sort of solution around blending, roasting facilities, or anything else that could be either capital intensive or potentially leading to higher OpEx? Thank you.
Yeah. Right now, it's still early stages. All of our options are open. We are investigating that and what we can do, whether it is a means of blending or if there is a tertiary process that we will pursue. We're looking at whatever makes the most sense for the operation. There are many technical opportunities available to us in that regard.
Okay. Understood. Thanks again, and congratulations.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Daniel Major with UBS. Your line is open.
Hi. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the presentation. Yeah. First question from me. The oxides, how do you see that fitting into the initial stages of development and CapEx? Should we think that the technical report you publish in the first quarter of next year will be for Josem aria or a combined sort of development plan, Josem aria plus Filo sulfoxides?
Daniels, Jack here. Thanks a lot for the question. That's exactly what we're studying right now. I mean, both of the Filo oxides and Jose Maria will make up the early part of the phased development scenario. Full scale will be once we bring in the Filo sulfides, and we're running at full capacity, which we're also kind of working through a PEA level study on that right now. Right now, we're pursuing Josem aria in parallel with the Filo oxides. We've got further definition around Josem aria . Therefore, it's further de-risked today than the Filo oxides. Right now, this is where we're doing all of our work to understand, is there an ability to kind of bring in the Filo oxides in parallel or shortly after Jose coming in? That will all be established in this integrated report.
Just to summarize, both of them kind of make up the earlier years of this multi-phased project.
Great. Yeah. That's very clear. Thanks. Then the second phase, I mean, you mentioned earlier, obviously, you would expect within 20 years, that's the mine life of Josem aria . You'd obviously be planning on the second phase or processing the Filo ores. Can you give us a rough indication about in a post startup of the Filo, sorry, of the concentrator, I mean, in what sort of time horizon would you expect to be accessing and processing the Filo sulfides? Will the initial CapEx include mine development for Filo?
Yeah. I mean, the J Josem aria deposit itself stands as a large-scale copper, gold, silver operation. For us, the focus will be bringing in and getting into that high-grade core. As we've kind of demonstrated through this presentation, there exists a meaningful amount of elevated grades in the supergene component of the Josem aria deposit. I think our mine planning and our scenario analysis that we're doing right now would be that we would not get out of that high grade before bringing in phase two or later stages and bringing in the full-scale Filo deposit. We would want to maintain an elevated grade at Jose Maria. Within the first five to 10 years, we would be looking at ensuring that we've got backfill from higher grade sources, which would likely be Filo.
Okay. That's interesting. Thanks. Final question for me. BHP has indicated that they would look to equity account the Vicuna JV in terms of their kind of funding structure and how they report it. Will you be doing the same? Have you looked at non-recourse project finance as one of the options for funding your share of the CapEx?
Hi, Daniel. It's Teitur here. We will be taking a different approach on accounting treatment. We will do proportional consolidation of this project. We will account for effectively our 50% share of revenue and costs and assets and liabilities on our balance sheet. That is how we will treat it. In terms of financing, similar answer to the previous questions. All options are open. Non-recourse project finance, I mean, to me, is I think a less likely avenue given the cost associated with that sort of setup, unless you have a parent company guarantee, in which case it is not really non-recourse. As I said, we are looking at all options on how we fund this.
Okay. Great. Thanks. Good luck.
Thanks.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Connor McKay with Ventum Financial. Your line is open.
Thanks very much. Thanks, Jack and team, for taking my question here. First of all, I know we've talked about metallurgy a little bit, and a lot of that work is still ongoing. I just wanted to clarify. The last tech report on Filo, the 2023 PFS, mentioned that potential optimization of the flow sheet resulted in some pretty significant boost to the precious metals recoveries by treating the tails of the flotation. I'm wondering if the recoveries presented in the resource statement here take into account any of that sort of post-flotation processing or whether that's just pure flotation recoveries?
Yeah. In this case, those are strictly flotation recoveries. Yes, there's an opportunity there for recovery from the cleaner tails, and that is something that we are investigating. At the moment, this is strictly flotation recovery that you see there.
Perfect. Thanks. Just wondering about what is the split of resources, particularly, I mean, obviously, just for Filo between the Chilean and Argentinian side and whether you're able to provide any update on the negotiations or mechanics of how cross-border mining could be implemented?
Yeah. We're still defining that as the drill programs go on, but it's about 10%.
10% in Chile.
Yeah.
Perfect. That's it for me. Thanks. And congratulations again.
Thanks, Connor.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Lawson Winder with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Yeah. Thank you, operator. Hello, Jack and team. Guys, congratulations on a really fantastic update here. I wanted to ask you about the potential to vend in some of the existing Lundin Mining assets, for example, the port. Where your thinking is on that today and when something like that might need to happen in order to keep up with the pace of development.
Hey, Lawson. Thanks a lot for your question. The cross-border nature of the development and tapping into existing infrastructures is part of kind of the overall integrated study that we're looking at. Phase one, which we would be contemplating, is kind of still large-scale in nature, but small enough that it wouldn't require kind of pipelines and large kind of CapEx infrastructure requirements. We will definitely be looking at transporting our product west and seeing if we could utilize our port, which has spare capacity. Phase one would be looking at building a standalone development within Argentina. Once we get to full scale with bringing in the Filo sulfides, we would really look at key pieces of infrastructure like pipelines and desalinated facilities and whatnot. Phase one, we could very well be using the port that exists in Caldera, Lundin Mining's own port.
is very important for us to look at the infrastructure that exists both east and west. To get the product west to the Pacific coast is much quicker and a shorter distance. That is kind of the line of direction we are heading in.
I gather from your comments then that the form in which that port might be used has not yet been determined, talked about, or decided whether it's vended in or perhaps stays standalone.
Correct. I mean, we're looking at all options. We're looking at kind of the economics of what it would take to kind of operate off-site infrastructure and seeing if there's an option to maybe have a subsidiary entity that manages all of that key off-site infrastructure. This is all very much being kind of studied right now. What I will say is the infrastructure on the Chilean side plays a key role in how we're advancing our studies.
Yeah. That's perfect. Then just on the water, under the slightly expanded case of 175,000 tons per day, is your belief that there is sufficient water to feed that mill?
Great question. I mean, that's been part of the extensive fieldwork campaigns that we've been running over the last several years. We're continuing to run that this year. That kind of water modeling is going to make its way into this integrated study. We believe the initial years of mining will be supported from groundwater sources. Now is the time for us to kind of look at those options and really validate and ensure that we've got enough of that supply.
Just one final question on infrastructure, if I could. Have talks advanced to a point on power availability where you're comfortable kind of saying what the most likely solution would be for phase one? That being whether it comes from the Chilean side, the Argentinian side, or some sort of localized solution.
Yeah. We are pursuing a power line on the Argentinian side of the border. I mean, it's obviously a complicated project, but we don't foresee any major issues getting the power from that side.
Okay. Fantastic. Great. Appreciate you taking the questions. Thanks for all the color.
Thank you.
One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Martin Pradier with Veritas Investment Research. Your line is open.
Thank you. Congratulations for great results. My question will be you're thinking about a second or third phase. When will that be? Will that include bringing water from Chile, I guess, because I'm assuming there's not enough water on the Argentinian side?
Yeah. Thanks for the question. As we've been describing with the deposits that make up the Vicuna project in its totality, we are looking at executing this development through multiple phases. Full scale would be seeing us really getting into the higher grade, large portion of the Filo del Sol deposit. That's when we're anticipating that we're at what's classified as full scale. At that time, we would definitely be looking at bringing in additional infrastructure and water sources so that we wouldn't be pulling from strictly one location. Therefore, looking at a desalinated water line is something that is being studied and undertaken extensively at this time.
You have water on the Chilean side, not too far from there. Will that just be an extension of your existing water line?
Yeah. I think for us, looking at a desalinated water line makes sense for a project of this scale and given its location. We are studying a desalinated option as part of this whole integrated report that will come out in the early part of next year.
It would be completely independent. That's what you're trying to tell me.
It'll form part of the integrated.
It'll be independent.
Yeah. I mean, right now, it'll form part of the integrated study. We see that we have Candelaria and Caserones as key pieces of infrastructure that could support bringing in infrastructure into the district. All of that is to be further defined in the overall study that's being done this year. The resource that we're announcing today, it forms the basis and validates the merits of the report and the studies that we're doing. All of that will be outlined in the early part of next year.
Thanks. Very helpful.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. That will come from the line of analyst with Cormark Securities . Your line is open.
Hey, great. Again, congratulations on the resource. Just a quick maybe sort of housekeeping question. You already got a lot of resource in the M&I category. Just thinking ahead to the study that we're going to see in Q1 of next year, will it be largely centered on that existing M&I, or do you plan to do a lot more drilling to maybe bring some of the inferred in that might affect your strip ratio thinking and/or whatnot going forward?
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. I mean, we've closed our database off about a month ago, and we've been drilling nonstop since then. Drills will be turning throughout the winter. For the next, we're currently planning about 18 months out. There's a number of goals from those drill programs, as I mentioned, in support of studies. One of the other main targets will be improving oxide definition as well as bringing in the highest value inferred into the mine life. We will be converting inferred into indicated. We're still looking at what's the best strategy, whether we go east, west, south, or north. That conversion will be driven mostly by value in the mine plant.
Okay. When we think about the study, I mean, should we assume it's like a PFS to FS standard? Anything that is inferred would be waste in the study?
For the first upcoming PEA, we will be looking at economics of the entire resource. Yeah, beyond that, as we move into the PFS, we will be looking at the indicated only, which by that point, we'll have grown by a significant amount.
Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks very much, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We do have a follow-up question. That will come from the line of Orest Wowkodaw with Scotia Bank. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks for the follow-up. I guess, firstly, from a timeline perspective, can you give us an idea if the integrated technical studies coming out in Q1 of next year, is there any kind of target timeline for an FID decision for building phase one? Could we expect that, I suppose, either late 2026 or into 2027?
Hey, Orest. Yeah, of course. Everything that we're working towards is de-risking the project sufficiently so that the report will back up a sanction decision. Working together with our partners, BHP and Vicuna Corp, and understanding kind of how fast and what's required to really sanction will be a critical item for us. Everything that we're doing is working towards driving to being able to make a decision on sanction, or at least advancing with phase one by next year. We still have a lot of work to be done between now and then. That's kind of the timeline that we're on.
Okay. Just separately on José Maria, the high-grade core, the 200 million tons of M&I at 0.73 copper equivalent, how quickly do you think in a mine plan you can actually get into that? Did I hear you correct that that now will be mined out in the first five years? We should expect much higher grades than, call it, the old mine plan?
Yeah. The good news is, and you can see it on the screen, I think, right now, that it is very close to surface. There is not a lot of stripping that's required to really get into that zone. Not everything in that high-grade core is likely available in a conceivable five-year plan, but a lot of it is. I think that when we are able to advance that study a little further, our target is always to bring high-grade ahead as much as possible. I think we're going to do that, so.
Is it fair to say that the grades now in the first five years are likely a lot higher than what was in the original study?
We'll be pursuing an elevated cutoff. Yeah. I mean, we're going to try our, the goal of the mine plan will be to do that. We just don't have a mine plan to put out yet. In the updated study, we will. That is our goal, is what you just said there.
Okay. Thank you very much.
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