Fruta del Norte (FDN) deposit NOT A MINE (2015)
Location
Zamora-Chinchipe Province
CountryEcuador
Production
ProductsGold
Owner
CompanyLundin Gold Inc.

The Fruta del Norte deposit is the largest gold deposit in Ecuador.[1] The deposit is part of the Corriente Copper Belt located in the Amazon province of Zamora-Chinchipe.

In 2006 Aurelian Resources discovered a large deposit at Fruta del Norte, estimated between 6.8 and 10 million ounces of gold and between 9.1 and 14 million ounces of silver.[2][3] Following changes to Ecuadorian mining laws that limited foreign ownership of mining projects, the Canadian company Kinross Gold acquired Aurelian Resources in 2009 and took on the project.[3] Despite the project's potential, and just days before Congress passed a new mining law in 2013, Kinross pulled out of Ecuador after a dispute over windfall taxes, reporting a loss of $720 million.[4][5][6] In 2014 Kinross sold its entire interest in the project to Fortress Minerals Corporation. The company was renamed Lundin Gold and the Fruta del Norte deposit went into production in 2019. [7][8]

Discovery

The deposit was discovered by a combination of a conceptual exploration model that predicted mineralization might occur buried in a pull-apart basin (Aurelian Exploration Manager Steve Leary) and the observation that some silicification of these basin sediments had occurred at Fruta del Norte by geologist Julio Soto.[9]

References

  1. ↑ url=http://www.lundingold.com/s/projects.asp
  2. ↑ "He Struck It Rich in Ecuador. Now He's Looking for the Lost Cities of Gold". Bloomberg.com. 20 December 2017.
  3. 1 2 "The Barron is back - MINING.com".
  4. ↑ Joe Leahy (11 June 2013). "Kinross Gold scraps $1.3bn Ecuador project". The Financial Times. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  5. ↑ Patricia Rey Mallén (13 June 2013). "Canadian Gold Giant Kinross Pulls Out Of Ecuador Mine Project, Will China Take Its Place?". International Business Times. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  6. ↑ Leahy, Joe (2013-06-10). "Kinross Gold scraps $1.3bn Ecuador project". Financial Times.
  7. ↑ Alvaro, Mercedes (22 October 2014). "Kinross to Sell Interest in Ecuador's Fruta del Norte Gold Mine to Fortress". Wall Street Journal – via www.wsj.com.
  8. ↑ Reuters Editorial (21 October 2014). "UPDATE 1-Kinross to sell halted Ecuador gold project to Lundin company". Reuters. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  9. ↑ Leary, Stephen; Sillitoe, Richard H.; Stewart, Peter W.; Roa, Karl J.; Nicolson, Benjamin E. (2016). "Discovery, Geology, and Origin of the Fruta del Norte Epithermal Gold-Silver Deposit, Southeastern Ecuador". Economic Geology. 111 (5): 1043–1072. doi:10.2113/econgeo.111.5.1043.

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