Sunstone Metals (ASX: STM) used its presentation at the Resources Rising Stars Gold Coast Conference on September 9, 2026, to place its Ecuador gold assets in focus. The company said it expects to be in a position to announce a significant resource upgrade in October or November 2026, and that drilling at El Palmar is set to restart next week, the first time in about 2.5 years.
At Bramaderos, Sunstone cited a current resource of 3.6 million ounces across three linked porphyry systems: Brama, Alba and Melonal. The company outlined an additional exploration target of 5 million to 13 million ounces, with new discovery potential at Copete and Porotillo estimated at 1.7 million to 3.5 million ounces. Management said drilling in the top 200 meters of the porphyry system has returned mineralization from surface to the bottom of each hole, with complementary intervals averaging about 0.6 to 0.7 grams per tonne across three holes at Copete and Porotillo. The Brama, Alba, Melonal, Copete and Porotillo systems may eventually connect into a single open pit measuring roughly 2 kilometers by 2 kilometers, with a stripping ratio of 1.4 times. A scoping study, issued in April, valued the project at a net present value of A$1.2 billion, with an estimated mine life of 23 years.
El Palmar has a current surface resource of 1.2 million ounces, which Sunstone expects to grow initially to 3 million to 4 million ounces as an open-pit operation. The company set a deep porphyry exploration target of 15 million to 45 million ounces. The project is located on cleared agricultural land above the equator, near the Toachi fault system and the Llurimagua copper system, described as a 1 billion tonne system at 1% copper. It is also near SolGold's Cascabel project, which was sold to Jiangxi Copper for $1.7 billion. DGR, a strategic investor, has taken a 10% stake in Sunstone.
On the financial side, Sunstone has a market capitalization of about A$60 million and held A$12 million in cash at the end of September. The company said the cash balance supports funding into next year. The share count was consolidated to 7 billion shares in February. The company said it trades at less than A$10 per ounce on an enterprise-value-to-resource basis, compared with peer comparisons of A$30 to A$50 per ounce.
Metallurgical test work has reduced the all-in sustaining cost estimate from just under A$1,500 per ounce to A$1,340 per ounce, a reduction of about 10%. Gold recovery improved from 85% to 93%, while copper recovery rose from 75% to 80%. Management attributed an estimated A$300 million value uplift to the recovery improvements and projected a margin of about A$3,000 per ounce at current gold prices based on the revised cost base.
