Capstone Copper resumes production at Chile mine
Capstone Copper Corp. [CS-TSX, CSC-ASX] said sulphide copper production at its Mantoverde mine in Chile has returned to full operating rates following a period of interrupted production due to a motor failure in the ball mill.
Mantoverde (70%-owned by Capstone and 30% by Mitsubishi Materials Corp.) is an open pit copper-gold mine located in the Atacama region of Chile. Since the 1990s, Mantoverde operated as an oxide mine producing copper cathodes from its 60,000 tonnes per year capacity SX-EW plant. In 2023, Capstone completed construction of the Mantoverde Development Project (MVDP) that enabled the mine to process its copper sulphide reserves, in addition to existing ore reserves. The MVDP involved the addition of a sulphide concentrator and tailings storage facility, and the expansion of the existing desalination plant and other minor infrastructure. First saleable copper concentrate at MVDP was produced in June 2024 and commercial production was achieved in the second quarter of 2025.
In the second quarter of 2025, the plant achieved an average throughput of 33,409 tonnes per day, exceeding he current design capacity. Five days of planned maintenance is still expected to be conducted at the end of September.
In a press release on August 31, 2025, said the Mantoverde site experienced a failure of one of its two ball mill electrical drive motors (on August 24, 2025). The damaged motor was replaced with a spare in order to return to full capacity. However, on August 30, 2025, the site experienced a failure of the second ball mill drive motor. “Without an additional spare on site, this has resulted in a period of impacted production at Mantoverde,’’ the company said in a press release.
In an earlier press release on August 8, 2025, Capstone announced the sanctioning of the Monteverde (MV) Optimized project for construction following all required board approvals. MV Optimized is a capital-efficient brownfield expansion of Mantoverde’s sulphide concentrator, increasing throughput from 32,000 to 45,000 ore tonnes per day, providing incremental copper and gold production of approximately 20,000 tonnes and 6,000 ounces annually, respectively, and extending the mine life from 19 to 25 years.
Capstone is a Canadian base metals mining company with a focus on copper.
Its portfolio includes the Pinto Valley copper mine in Arizona, and the Cozamin copper-silver mine in Zacatecas, Mexico, the Mantos Blancos copper-silver mine in Chile and 70% of the Mantoverde copper-gold mine. In addition, Capstone holds a 70% interest in Santo Domingo, a large scale, fully-permitted, copper-iron-gold project, in partnership with Korea Resources Corp.
Mantoverde is expected to produce 68,000 to 80,000 tonnes of copper (sulphide production) and 29,000 to 32,000 tonnes of cathode copper production.
On Friday, Capstone shares rose 2.1% or 21 cents to $10.17. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $11.15 and $4.97.
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