Overview
The Jiguata Project is an early-stage porphyry copper exploration project in the Eocene-Oligocene metallogenic belt of northern Chile. It comprises 10,000 hectares within 34 exploration licences (‘pedimentos’), and is located 120km north of the giant Collahuasi – Quebrada Blanca cluster of deposits (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Location of the Jiguata Property (10,000 hectares) in the Eocene-Oligocene metallogenic belt of northern Chile, where it is overprinted by the younger Miocene belt.
Tribeca holds a five-year option to purchase 100% of the project, which was executed on 29 October 2025. For details of the project and agreement see the news releases dated 19 June 2025 and 29 October 2025.
Project Details
The Jiguata Property is located in the northern extension of the Eocene-Oligocene metallogenic belt of northern Chile (Figure 1), where it has been overprinted by the Miocene magmatic belt. The prolific Eocene-Oligocene Belt hosts the giant Collahuasi, Chuquicamata and Escondida deposits, while the Miocene Belt, further to the south, hosts many of the current crop of high-profile Chilean-Argentine porphyry copper projects including Filo del Sol, Valeriano, Encierro and Altar.
The project area encompasses a large advanced argillic alteration zone (25 square km) hosted within a volcanic tuffaceous unit under a thin blanketing cover of fresh unaltered Miocene dacitic volcanic rocks dated at approximately 9-5 Ma (Figure 2). The alteration zone has been exposed via an erosional window in the overlying Miocene volcanic rocks. The age of the tuffaceous unit hosting the alteration is unknown age but likely Eocene-Oligocene or Miocene. Within the alteration zone, previously unmapped feldspar-biotite-(hornblende) bearing porphyritic units are recognised. The alteration zone is representative of a lithocap and dominated by epithermal mineralogy and textures (e.g. extensive quartz-alunite alteration and the presence of steam-heated, chalcedonic silica and quartz ledges), although porphyry-style veins are present at surface and propylitic alteration and quartz stockwork is recorded from shallow historic drilling. The historic drilling comprised two reverse circulation (RC) drill holes that were completed in 1993 to depths of 250m and 300m. The drill holes appear to have been targeted at silica ‘ledges’ within a large soil molybdenum anomaly (up to 867ppm Mo in soils) in the incised valley. Highly anomalous molybdenum was recorded in the drill holes (e.g. 248m @ 120ppm Mo in drill hole 3546), with copper above background at 250 ppm. Various copper or molybdenum sulphide minerals have been reported from the drilling, including chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite and molybdenite.
Figure 2. Oblique view to the NE of the incised advanced argillic alteration system at Jiguata (pale rocks) hosting mapped porphyritic units (in red). A thin cover of Miocene volcanic rocks (dark sub-horizontal unit) cover this alteration zone. The two historic RC drill holes from Codelco (250m and 300m depth) are shown in the southern valley floor.
IP surveying was completed on six one kilometer-spaced lines over part of the project area in 2014, delineating two large chargeability anomalies which coalesce to form a zone of 1.5km x 5km at >20 mV/V (Figure 3), with associated high- and low-resistivity zones, which comprise high-priority near-term drill targets.
The project area is traversed by an existing good quality maintained road (97-B) which is partly asphalted, allowing for rapid access within 3½ hours (220km) from the port city of Iquique via the Collahuasi access road (highway 65). The altitude in the project area generally ranges between 4,200m-4,600m, but the northerly latitude of the project provides only short interruptions to access for exploration activities, with a variably short snow season in July-August and a rainy period (“Bolivian winter”) in January-February. Other companies holding exploration tenure in the general area include, Vale, Codelco, BHP, Teck, Glencore and Antofagasta Minerals.
Figure 3. Location of IP survey lines shown relative to the large advanced argillic alteration zone at the Jiguata Project. The modelled chargeability sections are shown for lines 5000N and 6000N, which host two high chargeability drill targets. The deep purple colors on the sections represent chargeability values of approximately 30 mV/V.