Highlights

  • Sunstone Metals presented its investor briefing showcasing a combined global mineral resource of 7.4 million ounces gold-equivalent across the Bramaderos and El Palmar gold-copper projects in Ecuador.
  • The Bramaderos project has seen its mineral resource grow 72 per cent to 6.2 million ounces gold-equivalent in October 2026, with an additional Exploration Target of 4.4 to 11.2 million ounces gold-equivalent and a Scoping Study completed in April 2026.
  • The El Palmar project holds a 1.2 million ounce gold-equivalent maiden resource with an Exploration Target of 15 to 45 million ounces gold-equivalent, representing the company's view of El Palmar's potential to become a tier-one scale deposit.
  • Ecuador is described as a highly prospective gold-copper Jurisdiction with the backing of a re-elected president encouraging responsible mining, and the Bramaderos project benefits from recent metallurgical testwork delivering improved recovery rates.

Sunstone Metals Limited (ASX:STM) is an ASX-listed gold-copper explorer with two advanced exploration projects in Ecuador — Bramaderos in the southern Loja province and El Palmar in the northern Imbabura province. The company presented an investor briefing on 5 November 2026, showcasing the combined mineral resource across both projects and updating shareholders on exploration progress, the status of a completed scoping study, and the broader strategic rationale for its dual-project approach in one of the world's more prolific gold-copper geological settings.

Bramaderos: A Growing Porphyry Gold-Copper System

The Bramaderos project is host to a cluster of gold-copper-silver porphyry systems, with the most advanced being the Brama-Alba porphyry deposit. In October 2026, Sunstone's mineral resource estimate for Bramaderos grew 72 per cent to 464 million tonnes at 0.42 grams per tonne gold-equivalent for 6.2 million ounces gold-equivalent. The resource includes 3.3 million ounces in the higher-confidence Indicated category, which the company considers a material step toward de-risking the resource base for future studies. An Exploration Target of between 3.5 and 9.5 million ounces gold-equivalent in the porphyry system, plus a separate Limon epithermal target of 0.9 to 1.7 million ounces gold-equivalent, sits in addition to the declared resource.

A Scoping Study released in April 2026 outlined the preliminary development parameters for Bramaderos, with a low projected Mining strip ratio and a simple multi-decade open-pit development scenario being among the key findings. Metallurgical testwork results reported in September 2026 demonstrated improved recovery rates compared with earlier estimates for both gold and copper, adding further confidence to the project's processing economics. Drilling continues to grow the resource, with every drill hole in 2026 described as intersecting mineralisation from surface, and further testing of the Melonal, Limon Deep, and other targets is planned alongside metallurgical and environmental baseline work.

El Palmar: Targeting Tier-One Scale Potential

The El Palmar project, located in northern Ecuador along the same geological belt as several of the country's largest porphyry copper-gold deposits, holds a maiden mineral resource of 64 million tonnes at 0.60 grams per tonne gold-equivalent for 1.2 million ounces gold-equivalent. This resource represents the top 450 metres of the T1 porphyry target only, with deeper drilling at El Palmar intersecting mineralisation that the company believes indicates the potential for a substantially larger system. The Exploration Target for El Palmar, conceptual in nature, is estimated at between 1.0 and 1.2 billion tonnes at grades of 0.3 to 0.7 grams per tonne gold and 0.1 to 0.3 per cent copper, implying between 15 and 45 million ounces gold-equivalent.

Ecuador has seen meaningful transaction activity in the gold-copper sector in recent years, with major mining companies acquiring large porphyry-hosted resources in the country. The government under the re-elected president is characterised as supportive of responsible mining development. Sunstone holds an 87.5 per cent interest in Bramaderos and a 74.5 per cent interest in El Palmar, with an option to acquire the full interest in El Palmar through a staged Acquisition agreement. The company highlighted a valuation disconnect versus peers it considers comparable in terms of resource size and development stage, characterising its own shares as trading at a significantly lower Enterprise value per ounce than selected comparators.

Key Takeaways

Sunstone Metals' investor presentation reflects a company with two large-scale porphyry gold-copper exploration Assets in a jurisdiction that has attracted significant Capital and corporate transaction interest in recent years. The Bramaderos project has demonstrated rapid resource growth, now at 6.2 million ounces gold-equivalent with ongoing drilling and an exploration target that could add materially more. El Palmar, while at an earlier stage, carries an exploration target that if partially converted through further drilling could represent one of the more significant undeveloped gold-copper deposits in the region. The key milestones for investors include further drilling and resource updates at both projects, the progression from the Bramaderos Scoping Study toward more advanced engineering work, and any corporate or strategic developments in Ecuador's active porphyry M&A environment.