Lundin Mining Brand Guidelines: South Atlantic Diamonds, Candelaria & Vicuña

A diamond shell, a Swedish discovery and a family name.

Lundin Mining did not start as a copper company. It was incorporated in 1994 as South Atlantic Diamonds Corp., the company says, marking Adolf Lundin’s ambition to build a base-metals business; English Wikipedia says the first aim was investing in a diamond mine in Brazil. The company says Adolf Lundin founded it together with his son Lukas, who chaired its board for more than 25 years until May 2022.

The first real asset was in Sweden. Through a 39% holding in North Atlantic Natural Resources, the company says, it discovered the high-grade Storliden deposit in northern Sweden in 1997; a joint venture with Boliden followed in 2001 and commercial production in 2002. English Wikipedia records name changes along the way, to South Atlantic Resources and then South Atlantic Ventures, and listings in Stockholm in December 2003 and Toronto in August 2004.

The family name arrived with a mine. In 2004 the company bought the Zinkgruvan zinc, lead and silver mine in Sweden and was renamed Lundin Mining Corporation, the company says; English Wikipedia names Rio Tinto as the seller. Mergers followed quickly: Arcon International Resources in 2005 brought the Galmoy mine in Ireland, and EuroZinc in 2006 brought Neves-Corvo in Portugal. In 2007 it acquired Tenke Mining, adding an interest in the Tenke Fungurume copper project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, developed with Freeport-McMoRan, and Rio Narcea Gold Mines, owner of the Aguablanca nickel-copper mine in Spain.

Those European mines carried the company through its first growth phase. It says it discovered the high-grade Semblana deposit at Neves-Corvo in 2010 and commissioned a copper plant at Zinkgruvan the same year, while Tenke Fungurume produced its first copper cathode in 2009. It restarted the Aguablanca mine in 2012 and in 2013 took a 24% interest in a cobalt refinery at Kokkola in Finland, a stake English Wikipedia says it sold to Umicore in 2019.

Turning south to Chile and Brazil.

The copper turn came in the 2010s. In 2013 Lundin Mining bought the Eagle nickel-copper project in Michigan, and in 2014 it acquired an 80% interest in the Candelaria copper mining complex in Chile, with operatorship; English Wikipedia says the seller was Freeport-McMoRan. It sold its Tenke Fungurume interest in 2017, the company says, and in 2019 bought the Chapada copper-gold mine in Brazil, which English Wikipedia says came from Yamana Gold.

Chile grew again in 2023, when Lundin Mining took 51% of the Caserones copper mine, raising its interest to 70% in 2024 and 75% in April 2026, the company says. In the same years it sold its European and American assets: Neves-Corvo and Zinkgruvan went to Boliden in a sale completed on 16 April 2025, and the Eagle mine and Humboldt mill went to Talon Metals in a sale completed on 9 January 2026.

The headquarters moved with the portfolio. English Wikipedia says the company moved from Vancouver to Toronto in June 2008, and the company says it relocated its head office back to Vancouver in 2023. Today it describes itself as a Canadian mining company with three operating mines in Brazil and Chile, listed in Toronto and on Nasdaq Stockholm, and says its strategic vision is to become a top-ten global copper producer. Its stated values are respect, courage, excellence and momentum.

How copper miners present themselves.

Copper miners sell a raw material, not a consumer product, so their identities are built for investors, governments, employees and the communities near their mines. The pictures tend to repeat across the sector: terraced open-pit benches lit by low desert sun, haul trucks whose wheels stand taller than the workers beside them, the long sheds of a concentrator, and stacks of copper cathode sheets ready for shipment. Copper itself often supplies the colour, in warm orange and brown tones that run through reports and presentations.

Much of the communication is formal. Annual reports, sustainability reports and technical reports on reserves are published on fixed calendars, and quarterly results are written for analysts. Alongside the numbers sit recurring themes: safety, presented as a daily routine rather than a slogan; community programmes in schools, clinics, water and local suppliers; and, increasingly, the place of copper in electricity grids, electric vehicles and renewable energy, framed as the metal of the energy transition.

The sector also has its own meeting places. The PDAC convention in Toronto and the Mining Indaba in Cape Town gather miners, explorers, investors and ministers each year, and company stands, logos and presentation decks are designed for those rooms as much as for the web. Trade titles such as The Northern Miner and Mining Technology report on projects, permits and disputes, which are part of the public record of every large miner.

The companies in this guide differ widely in origin: some began as subsidiaries of older American smelting groups, some as small exploration companies, some as state enterprises. This guide sets out what can be checked about each one — who founded it, who owns it, where it mines and what has been reported about its disputes — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Vicuña, a joint venture and a public record.

The company’s growth story now centres on the Vicuña district on the border of Argentina and Chile. It bought Josemaria Resources, owner of a copper-gold project in Argentina, in 2022 and announced in July 2024 a joint purchase of Filo Corp, owner of the neighbouring Filo del Sol project, with BHP. Mining Technology and BusinessDay reported on 16 January 2025 that the deal had been completed and that the two partners had formed Vicuña Corp., a 50:50 joint venture holding both projects and run independently of its owners. In April 2026, the company says, it also acquired a 30.9% interest in the Los Helados project.

Official findings are part of the record. On 31 January 2025 Mining Technology reported that Chile’s environmental regulator, the Superintendencia de Medio Ambiente, had ordered the complete and definitive closure of the Alcaparrosa mine, operated by Lundin Mining’s local unit Ojos del Salado, after an investigation prompted by a sinkhole more than 60 metres deep that formed in 2022. In late 2025 the Supreme Court of Canada, in an 8–1 decision, dismissed Lundin Mining’s appeal in a securities case over how quickly it disclosed a rockslide at a Chilean copper mine it operates, so an investor claim could proceed, the law firm Bennett Jones wrote on 3 December 2025.

For a design guide, Lundin Mining shows a company whose name and map have both changed: a diamond shell became a Swedish zinc miner and then an Andean copper producer, and its identity has to read as one story across those moves. Compare it with BHP, its Vicuña partner, and Freeport-McMoRan, which once held Candelaria. For this guide we use a slate, copper, sand and near-black palette with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Lundin Mining’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.