Capstone Copper has outlined an investment plan exceeding $3 billion in Chile’s Atacama region, according to Chile’s mining ministry, in an announcement reported by Reuters on October 26 and confirmed in its main figures by Shanghai Metals Market. The programme is built around the Santo Domingo copper and iron project and growth work at the Mantoverde mine, and the company aims to double its Chilean copper production by 2031.
The allocation is specific. About $2.3 billion is assigned to Santo Domingo, the fully permitted but not yet built project near Mantoverde whose feasibility study put initial capital at $2.3 billion, with average production of about 106,000 tonnes of copper a year over the first seven years of a 19 year mine life. A further $220 million goes to two near term growth projects at Mantoverde, with the balance of the $3 billion covering mine development, sustaining capital and exploration across the Chilean business. SMM notes the spending will proceed project by project, so approvals, construction starts and commissioning remain the milestones that decide how much of the plan becomes committed capital.
The scale is material against Capstone’s current base. The company produced about 224,800 tonnes of copper in 2025, of which Chile contributed about 157,000 tonnes, roughly 95,100 tonnes from Mantoverde and 61,900 tonnes from Mantos Blancos, or about 70 percent of group output. Doubling Chilean production by 2031 would therefore lift group output well above 300,000 tonnes a year even before any growth at its Pinto Valley mine in Arizona or Cozamin in Mexico.
Santo Domingo is the swing asset. Capstone has already brought in Orion Resource Partners for up to $360 million for a 25 percent interest in Santo Domingo and the nearby Sierra Norte property, a transaction the company says validates the project, de-risks funding and advances it toward a final investment decision. The project is low elevation, close to ports and established infrastructure, and its study economics showed an after tax net present value of $1.7 billion at a long term copper price of $4.10 a pound. Copper traded at $6.61 a pound in the latest market tables, up 1.55 percent on the day, which strengthens study economics on paper but does not remove construction or financing risk.
Jurisdiction watch: the announcement is a ministry endorsed investment plan, not a new fiscal or permitting concession, and no royalty or ownership terms change. Chile remains the single jurisdiction on which Capstone’s growth case rests, which is precisely why the ministry’s public backing matters: the state is presenting the programme as national copper growth, at a moment when the Codelco and BHP exploration agreement in Antofagasta, also reported today, points the same way.