Fitzroy Minerals' Tenorita Drill-Out: 6 Key Catalysts to Watch Into the Prefeasibility Study

Project Overview

Fitzroy Minerals (TSXV: FTZ | OTCQX: FTZFF | FSE: C3Y) is advancing the Buen Retiro copper project near Copiapó, Chile, 800 kilometres (km) north of Santiago, an hour and a half by air. The property is a brownfield iron oxide copper gold site built around a historical open pit called Manto Negro, 43 km southwest of the Candelaria mine. Fitzroy holds an option for 100% of Buen Retiro and is working with Pucobre, a local copper producer that has signed a letter of intent for a joint development plan. Four rigs are turning on the property, and the company is targeting first copper production in early 2028.

1. Near-Surface Continuity at Tenorita

The latest drilling turns the 1.7-km trend southwest of the old Manto Negro pit, now named Tenorita, into a near-surface zone with continuity now demonstrated across its widest part. One hole returned 0.97% copper over 111.9 metres (m) from 21.1 m depth, including 1.59% copper over 18.0 m from 84.0 m depth. Another returned 0.41% copper over 147.7 m from a depth of 26.3 m, including 0.88% copper over 47.0 m from a depth of 113.0 m. The holes confirm consistent shallow mineralisation for about 300 m across the widest part of the Tenorita area.

2. Four Rigs Running in Parallel

Four rigs allow Fitzroy to define Tenorita while it continues testing the rest of the property. One diamond rig is on shallow sulphides north of Manto Negro, in an area named Ortuzar; a second is on the southern extension, named Nativo; a third is extending Tenorita to the northeast; and a reverse-circulation rig is on regional targets. Since the start of February 2026, the company has drilled 78 diamond drill holes for 13,036 m, with a further 9,000 m planned in 2026.

President and Chief Executive Officer of Fitzroy Minerals, Merlin Marr-Johnson, is direct about why the programme keeps expanding:

"We've got four rigs turning at the moment, so there's no shortage of results. We thought we were going to be starting the deeper sulphide targets in April, but we just keep finding oxides, and if you're finding oxides which can go into the plant, we're still drilling that."

The oxide keeps pulling the rigs back to near-surface definition rather than the deeper sulphides, which is what feeds the mine plan first.

3. Drilling Sequenced Into the Prefeasibility Study

The drill-out is sized to a specific endpoint. The programme is targeting a move of Tenorita into measured, indicated, and inferred resource categories that carry a mine life into a prefeasibility study (PFS). Fitzroy is engineering the work to a production standard, not to the level of detail of a screening study.

Marr-Johnson is precise on the standard the study is being built to:

"Our partners have said they'd be willing to build today, but we are going to take it to a fully engineered product, mine-ready, at a prefeasibility category under the Canadian rules. It's engineered for production, we're doing all the work as if we're bringing this into production."

Building the study to that standard sets up a build decision immediately after it, on the way to production by 2028.

4. The Permitting & Study Calendar to 2028

The milestones are dated. Fitzroy is targeting completion of the Tenorita drill-out in August 2026 and submission of its environmental application, guided to the third quarter of 2026 in the corporate presentation and to September or October by Marr-Johnson, followed by the mineral resource estimate in the fourth quarter of 2026 and the PFS at the end of the first quarter of 2027. A build decision is targeted for mid-2027, with first production in early 2028. Chile's permitting law, dating back to September 2025 under the previous government, targets a 30% to 70% reduction in permit processing times. Separately, smaller brownfield projects with mitigating factors can be permitted on the basis of a statement of impact rather than a full environmental impact assessment, which takes less time and costs less.

Marr-Johnson puts the destination plainly: 

"We should be in production in early 2028." 

Every one of those steps has a date attached, which gives investors a benchmark for measuring slippage.

5. Processing Through Pucobre's Existing Plant

The schedule is credible because Fitzroy does not have to build the most expensive part of the plant. The plan is to build a heap-leach and solvent-extraction circuit on-site and truck material to Pucobre's existing Planta Biocobre plant, which supplies electrowinning, the last of the three processing steps. Pucobre has offered Fitzroy the use of that circuit, and Marr-Johnson says building an equivalent plant would cost about US$70 million. Fitzroy is still evaluating techniques for producing a soluble concentrate suitable for trucking. That plant runs at 800 tonnes per month, or 9,600 tonnes per annum (tpa), with 80% availability offered to Fitzroy, and two other nearby plants could lift the theoretical output to 14,000 tpa. 

Fitzroy's conservative working assumption is 10,000 tpa of copper over 10 years, with a total cost of US$3 per pound of copper. Pucobre estimates the build at US$40 million, which Marr-Johnson marks up by 50% to US$60 million as a conservative rule of thumb, noting Fitzroy has not yet run the numbers, leaving its contribution at US$42 million at 70% ownership or US$30 million at 50%. The project also carries a 2% net smelter return royalty, of which Fitzroy can buy back 1% for US$5 million before construction.

6. What Still Has to Come Together

Two variables swing the outcome. The scale of the resource estimate is pending. The ownership split turns on Pucobre's clawback, under which it can buy a 30% stake by paying 90% of Fitzroy's eligible expenses incurred from 2023, with a minimum of US$10.2 million, calculated upon delivery of the technical report. Exercise would take Fitzroy to 70%; management has also raised the option of selling a further roughly 20% of the project to fund construction, which would put it near 50%. Finishing the Tenorita drill-out is the gate that the resource and the study sit behind.

Key Takeaway for Investors

• Tenorita's widest part now carries demonstrated near-surface continuity over roughly 300 metres.
• Four rigs run in parallel, separating the drilling that defines Tenorita from resource and exploration work at Ortuzar, Nativo, and regional targets.
• A mine life long enough for a prefeasibility study is the specific target of the current programme.
• The sequence from resource estimate to build decision is fully dated, with first production targeted for early 2028.
• Access to Pucobre's existing plant removes the most expensive item from the capital bill, an electrowinning circuit, which Marr-Johnson puts at about US$70 million.

Bottom Line

Buen Retiro's near-term case rests on sequencing. The four-rig programme is drilling Tenorita out to a resource; the resource feeds a PFS; and the PFS feeds a build decision, each on a defined step toward first production in early 2028. What makes that more than an aspiration is the near-surface continuity at Tenorita and access to Pucobre's plant, which keeps the capital and the timeline within reach. The open questions are the scale of the resource estimate and the final ownership split, and both will be resolved over the coming quarters.