(Kitco News) Mogotes Metals plans to drill up to 20,000 meters at Filo Sur this season, more than three times last year’s total. The project sits beside the Filo del Sol discovery in the Vicuña District, where the company’s first fully funded campaign produced two discoveries.
“We’ve been looking for this moment for four years,” CEO Allen Sabet told Kitco Mining on Sept. 24 at the 2026 Precious Metals Summit in Beaver Creek.
The standout hole came at Albor, on the Argentine side of the border, where FS_DDH_016 returned 180 meters grading 0.98% copper equivalent from 108 meters, including 58 meters at 1.77%. Seven kilometers to the southeast, a hole at the Cruz del Sur porphyry cut 308 meters at 0.46% copper equivalent and 334 meters at 0.45%.
Sabet called Albor, “just the beginning,” adding, “So we’re looking for more of that kind of material, and we’re going to drill a lot to try and find it.”
Drilling restarts in November, weather permitting, after 6,208 meters last season, and Sabet put the treasury at about C$77 million. “It’s very simple. We want to follow up on our best drill holes of this last season. That’s priority number one,” he said. Albor comes first, with untested ground along strike and at depth, followed by Cruz del Sur. Third are targets near the Filo border, including one Sabet said he is “very keen on called Cuenca.”
Mogotes pieced together about 100 square kilometers directly south of Filo del Sol, now owned by BHP and Lundin Mining, including an option on ground held by Chilean iron ore producer CMP. “Obviously, we’re situated next to the biggest copper discovery of the last three decades, okay? So everything is prospective adjacent to something like that,” Sabet said.
The company has studied its neighbor closely. Sabet credited the Filo team’s two decades of persistence. “That’s a movie. Someone’s got to make it. I hope I’ll be in that movie with our own series of discoveries.” A geological paper published by that team also proved useful. “When we looked at that paper, and we looked at what the characteristics of the drill core that we saw in the Albor discovery, we saw so many similar characteristics,” he said. Both Mogotes discoveries sit on the same northwest-trending fault zone, which runs about 10 kilometers across the project.
The package straddles the Argentina-Chile border. In late August, the two countries approved protocols for three binational projects: the BHP-Lundin Vicuña project, NGEx Minerals’ NexoAndino and Filo Sur. “We’re actually one of three parties that were recently added to that,” Sabet said. “There’s some paperwork and some formalities that remain to be completed, but we will be benefiting from that this season if all goes well.”
Rio Tinto agreed in July to invest about US$15 million for an initial stake of roughly 5%, and the deal closed on Aug. 27. Rio also holds 15 months of exclusivity over Filo Sur, extendable by six months. The investment landed as the Albor results came in, but Sabet said the relationship “would’ve been years in the making” and that Rio’s “interest predated that discovery hole.” Asked whether other majors were jealous that Rio got in first, he said: “No comment.”
A joint technical committee is now trading ideas, with Mogotes keeping the final say. “Mogotes has full discretion on what advice we will kind of implement, and others we may not,” Sabet said. For now, he said, the collaboration is in its “early stages,” adding, “We’ll see how it goes over the next 12 months or so.”
He would not put a size on Filo Sur. “Too early. You were right. Just too early to say.” The bigger program leaves room for conservative step-outs as well as riskier tests. “We will take big swings,” Sabet said. Albor, in his view, is unlikely to stand alone. “It’s highly unlikely what we drilled at Albor is the only thing there.”
According to Sabet, the whole project saw about 20,000 meters of drilling before Mogotes arrived, so a full season would roughly double that record. “We hope if this year is successful, that will yield incredible results,” he said. “Of course, we don’t know that, so that’s what drilling is for.”
Watch the full video on the Kitco Mining YouTube channel.
This article/video was produced with support from a Kitco sponsor. The views expressed in this content do not necessarily reflect the views of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco does not endorse or recommend any company, security, investment product, or investment strategy. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.
Learn more about Mogotes Metals here
Kitco Spotlight Editorial
Kitco Spotlight Editorial is sponsored content, articles and announcements paid for by our advertisers that support our journalism. Our sponsored messages are targeted and hand-curated, highlighting the best of what's happening in the mining sector.
