Interview with Allen Sabet, CEO of Mogotes Metals Inc.
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/mogotes-metals-tsxvmog-major-copper-gold-discovery-at-filo-sur-10342
Recording date: 16th September 2026
Mogotes Metals closed out its first full drilling season at the Filo Sur project with two discoveries in hand and a validating investment from one of the world's largest mining companies. The Vicuña district straddling Argentina and Chile has drawn intense attention since Lundin Mining and BHP's Filo del Sol discovery redefined the region's prospectivity, and Mogotes' ground sits immediately along strike from that deposit and its structural corridor.
The season's headline result came from Albor, where a drill hole eturned 180 metres at 0.98% copper equivalent from 108 metres depth, including a higher-grade core of 58 metres at 1.77% CuEq, the strongest single intercept drilled at Filo Sur to date. A second discovery at Cruz del Sur, roughly four kilometres to the south, returned two broad intervals exceeding 300 metres each at lower but still meaningful grades, with mineralisation open in every direction. Both discoveries sit on the Macho Muerto Fault Zone, a 10-kilometre structure that CEO Allen Sabet describes as the project's primary control on mineralisation, and one that remains mostly untested.
Two further targets, Luz del Sol and Cuenca, were advanced this season through shallow drilling and channel sampling rather than full discovery-grade intercepts. Both returned encouraging but sub-economic results directly above geophysical anomalies interpreted as porphyry vectors, positioning them as first-pass drill targets in the coming season. A fifth target, Meseta, remains entirely untested after difficult ground conditions forced its deferral.
The more significant near-term development for investors may be corporate rather than geological. On August 2026, Mogotes closed a US$15 million strategic investment from Rio Tinto Canada Inc., pricing the placement at a 50–70% premium to where shares had been trading. The deal establishes a Strategic & Technical Alliance giving Mogotes access to Rio Tinto's geoscience capability, while granting Rio Tinto a 15-month exclusivity period over any project-level transaction at Filo Sur, a right to match competing proposals, and a top-up right to 9.99% ownership. Sabet was careful to note that Mogotes retains full discretion over its own technical and drilling decisions, and remains free to pursue corporate-level transactions, bringing in new investors or fielding a takeover approach, despite the project-level exclusivity.
That exclusivity period effectively sets the clock on a defined catalyst window: Rio Tinto will be watching the outcome of the 2026–2027 drill season, planned at up to 20,000 metres and more than triple this season's total, to decide whether to pursue a larger transaction. The company's roughly C$75 million treasury funds that programme, along with parallel option projects: Montana's Copper Cliff (a Rio Tinto-optioned porphyry system, earn-in to 51% for US$16 million) and Kazakhstan's Beskauga deposit (a multi-million-ounce gold-copper deposit with drill results due within weeks). For investors, the combination of an expanded, better-funded exploration programme and a defined major-investor decision point makes the next 12 to 15 months a genuine inflection period for the stock with the usual caveat that porphyry-district promise still has to be converted into defined, continuous tonnage.
View Mogotes Metals' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/mogotes-metals
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