RIO: Increasing Target Price on Construction Progress
What you need to know:
• Rio2 provided an update on the construction progress at the Fenix Gold Project. As of the end of Q2, construction is 41% complete and remains on track and on budget for first gold in Q1/26.
• With Q2 behind us, RIO approaches an inflection point of becoming a gold producer and taking advantage of the elevated gold price. There exists further upside with the Mine Expansion Study expected at year end.
• Rio2 also announced that it has received the third deposit from Wheaton of $50M and that it received conditional approval to graduate to the TSX.
This morning, Rio2 (RIO:TSXV, RIOFF:OTC) announced that construction at its wholly owned Fenix Gold Project in Chile’s Atacama Region was 41% complete at the end of Q2/25. The project, impressively, remains on schedule and within budget, with first gold production expected in January 2026. The Company provided a detailed breakdown of progress made over the nine-month period from October 1st, 2024, to June 30th, 2025. We are maintaining our BUY rating and increasing our target price to C$2.40/share (prev. C$1.40/share) on RIO.
Construction Updates
• Budget – The project spend is under budget ($56.4M vs. budget of $57.8M). This does not include corporate overheads and pre-construction costs.
• Schedule – Construction is 41% complete as of June 30th (vs. 19% as of March 31st). All long-term leads have been secured.
• Construction Progress – As of June 30th, 12.7ha of geosynthetics and 4ha of overliner material has been installed at the leach pad, providing capacity for the first six months of production. Key infrastructure is advancing, with haul roads progressing, structural work on the ADR plant nearing completion, and the first electrical switch room has been shipped.
• Exploration – Grade control drilling for the first three years of planned production is nearly complete, with results expected to inform an updated MRE and reconciliation by the end of September.
Timeline & Next Steps
• August 2025 – Start mining and stacking ore on leach pad
• August 2025 – Finalization of the PLS pond & Installation of switch rooms
• November 2025 – Commissioning of the ADR plant
• December 2025 – Completion of Mine Expansion Study
• January 2026 – First gold pour