Special Report: Hot Chili’s (ASX: HCH) second-best drill intersection ever at Cortadera also extends the high-grade copper-gold zone by about 100m to the east.

Most of the major copper mines around the world are porphyries which, because of their easy-mining large volumes, can be economic from copper concentrations as low as 0.15 per cent.

In July, Hot Chili announced a stunning 750m-long intersection at the Cortadera discovery in Chile grading 0.6 per cent copper and 0.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 204m depth, including a higher grade 188m at 0.9 per cent copper and 0.4g/t gold.

This rates as one of the worlds’ best copper-gold porphyry drill results ever recorded.

Today’s hit isn’t far behind. The 848m-long intersection graded 0.4 per cent copper and 0.2g/t gold, just 112m from surface.

The main porphyry at Cortadera is now 1.2km deep, 600m long and about 250m wide on average, Hot Chili says.

The latest result confirms that high-grade copper and gold mineralisation, about 350m below surface, extends 100m laterally across the northern flank of the main porphyry, called Cuerpo 3:

Supplied.

But there’s more to come, because the mineralisation remains open towards the north, south and at depth.

About 300m south of this monster 848m intersection, another 1.3km deep drill hole is testing for an even greater extension to high-grade mineralisation.

This hole has “unexpectedly” recorded a wide zone of strongly mineralised porphyry between 340m and 780m depth.

This strongly mineralised zone represents a potentially massive extension to the high-grade zone should successful results be returned.

Hot Chili wants to build a copper hub by combining the advanced Productora project and Cortadera  — which looks likely to underpin a globally significant new copper development along the coastline of Chile.

Cortadera is an early stage analogue to SolGold’s massive Cascabel project in Ecuador, which hosts 10.8 million tonnes of contained copper metal, 20 million ounces of gold, and is still growing.

But Cortadera is shallow; while Cascabel requires block cave underground mining because the ore body starts from around 600m deep.

>> 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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