Special Report: Hot Chili’s Cortadera copper-gold project in Chile is increasingly looking like it has open pit and underground growth potential.

The latest assays from the company’s drilling program and visual confirmations from a further two holes have uncovered mineralised porphyry extending from shallow depths and from surface, across a wide extent of the main porphyry, Cuerpo 3.

Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) said the fourth deep hole it has drilled at Cuerpo 3 intersected a shallow zone of 264m at 0.4 per cent copper and 0.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 52m.

The same hole also struck a deeper intersection of 150m at 0.6 per cent copper and 0.3g/t gold from a depth of 484m that includes a higher grade zone of 82m at 0.8 per cent copper and 0.4g/t gold from 496m.

This higher grade zone also includes additional silver and molybdenum credits.

>> Learn more about Hot Chili

To give some context, porphyry-style copper mines can be economic from copper concentrations as low as 0.15 per cent, which makes the thick zones that Hot Chili have returned from its drilling to date very intriguing indeed.

Pic: Supplied

Hot Chili has also completed a fifth hole that intersected mineralisation from a depth of 120m to 250m, along with a wide zone of mineralised and strongly mineralised porphyry from 650m to end of the hole, which stopped at 988.2m.

A sixth hole is also underway that has already recorded mineralised and strongly mineralised porphyry from surface to the current depth of 313m.

These results follow up from the earlier three deep drill holes that all returned thick copper-gold intersections.

The company said the results to date indicated that the Coratadera project’s potential size and significance was only just beginning to be revealed and that further drilling could cement its position as one of Chile’s most significant copper porphyry discoveries of the past decade.

Future plans

Hot Chili has been advancing multiple exploration work streams to bring forward drilling of several large, nearby targets that have the potential to deliver step-change growth.

These include surface geochemical programs, litho-structural mapping, petrographic and age date sampling, geophysical review and modelling, and environmental studies related to regulatory applications for drilling.

Results for this work will be released soon, which will include an update on the large undrilled Cortadera North target about 2km north of Cortadera.

The company also expects to start expansion drill testing at the two largest of Cortadera’s four porphyry centres shortly after it completes drilling of the sixth deep well at Cuerpo 3.

Read more:

‘Just the beginning’: Hot Chili’s Christian Easterday says the Cortadera copper discovery is just warming up

>> Now watch: 90 Seconds With… Christian Easterday, Hot Chili

This story was developed in collaboration with Hot Chili, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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