Sometimes a discovery is so big, it takes generations to discover, define and develop – in order to become a mining district that produces metals for future generations.
Over the past two decades, the Lundin Group technical team has found a cluster of giant copper-gold deposits in the Andes – the region that produces 40% of the world’s copper. Their Vicuña district deposits include Filo Corp.’s (TSX: FIL) Filo del Sol and Lundin Mining‘s (TSX: LUN) Josemaria in San Juan province, Argentina; and NGEx Minerals’ (TSX: NGEX) 69%-owned Los Helados in Chile’s Region III, plus its Lunahuasi discovery in San Juan.
And this year, the younger generation led by brothers Jack and Adam Lundin made a $4.8-billion deal with the world’s biggest miner, BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) that’s likely to catapult base metals producer Lundin into the copper big leagues. That’s why The Northern Miner has named Jack, the company’s president and CEO, and Adam, Lundin’s chair, our Persons of the Year for 2024.
The transaction gives the $11-billiion market cap Lundin an equal seat at the table to develop Vicuña’s deposits on the Argentina side, Josemaria and Filo del Sol.
“This has the potential to become one of the world’s biggest copper, gold, silver mines ever to be developed and operated,” Jack told The Northern Miner in October.
But it also offers the Lundin brothers an opportunity to build on the family legacy started in early 1960s by their grandfather, Adolf, and their father Lukas, who first brought the group into Argentina in 1989.
“This is a vision that started a long time ago that we’re carrying forward, but it also is at a scale that we, or my dad or grandfather never could have imagined it to become,” the CEO said.
The deal includes the $4.1-billion takeover of Lundin Group, Filo Mining, and a US$690-million payment by BHP to Lundin for half of Josemaria. Filo shareholders voted in favour of the deal in late September and it received approval in an Ontario court in October.
Family mission
The Vicuña story started in the late 1990s. Lundin geologists staked claims in the remote, high-altitude region, targeting an unexplored gap between two well-established mineral belts in the Andes — Maricunga to the north and El Indio to the south.
For 34-year-old Jack and 37-year-old Adam, not even in their teens at the time, the development of the immense district has become something of a family mission.
“As we were growing up and hearing about the exploration that was going on in the district, it was always something very exciting for us to be able to kind of be a part of,” Jack said.
