Special Report: Hot Chili is turning the heat up at its flagship Cortadera copper-gold project with an aggressive 40,000m drill campaign in 2021 after raising $25.6m.
The funds were raised through a private placement of shares priced at 4.2c each to sophisticated and professional investors that include several of Australia’s top resource funds, which represents a strong vote of confidence in the company and its lead project.
Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) says that besides the drill program, which will see the use of three rigs to accelerate drilling, proceeds from the placement will also be used for the second instalment of $US10m for the 100 per cent acquisition of the Cortadera project.
Ongoing expansion drilling has also recorded further exceptional widths of porphyry mineralisation, adding further to the string of successes that the company has accumulated at Cortadera.
“The institutional backing of the placement was pleasing and a strong endorsement of Hot Chili’s growth strategy and continuing success at Cortadera,” managing director Christian Easterday said.
“This funding provides certainty over our ability to deliver multiple catalysts in the year ahead.
“With copper price at seven-year highs, we are poised to accelerate our plans for Cortadera and position the Costa Fuego coastal copper project as one of the world’s leading new copper developments.”
Copper is currently priced at $US7,462 a tonne.
Upcoming news
Over the coming weeks, Hot Chili expects to provide drilling operation news and updates across multiple work streams.
These include results from the first diamond hole at Cuerpo 2 porphyry at Cortadera, which had intersected a broad, 500m zone of mineralisation and the current diamond hole at the main Cuerpo 3 porphyry that is drilling to a planned depth of 1,200m to test its southeast extension.
The latter hole has already intersected about 500m of porphyry mineralisation and remains in mineralisation at its current depth of about 1,000m, which indicates that there is room for the intersection to grow further.
Hot Chili is also waiting on results from first pass reverse circulation drilling across the Cortadera North target.
The first four holes across the large surface molybdenum anomaly have already been completed with results pending and clearing is now underway to provide access to the remaining six planned drill holes that will target the large induced polarisation chargeability anomaly and areas of outcropping copper-bearing B-veins.
Meanwhile, ramp-up of production is continuing at the Productora project where Chilean government agency Empresa Nacional de Mineria (ENAMI) is carrying out lease mining operations.
An update on ongoing discussions related to the expansion of production is expected soon.
All this work is expected to support resource upgrades to the company’s current combined Costa Fuego resources of 2.9 million tonnes of copper, 2.7 million ounces of gold, 9.9Moz of silver and 64,000t of molybdenum.
This article was developed in collaboration with Hot Chili, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.