Special Report: Following a better-than-expected result in the first round of drilling at the Cortadera copper-gold project in Chile, Hot Chili is stepping up its exploration effort.

The company has started a phase two drilling program focusing on the largest of the four porphyries discovered to date at Cortadera.

Hot Chili’s (ASX: HCH) drilling recently delivered a record 750m hit that included 188m at close to 1 per cent copper and 0.5 grams per tonne of gold.

That intercept ranks in the top 50 copper-gold porphyry hits ever recorded globally.

Porphyries typically range from 100 million to 5 billion tonnes, but at lower grades of between 0.2 per cent and less than 1 per cent copper.

In this case, hitting a grade of 1 per cent copper is considered high-grade.

Cortadera sits just 14km from Hot Chili’s Productora copper development along the coastal range of Chile and has been the source of several exceptional drill results.

The project was previously a privately owned major copper-gold discovery. Its acquisition by Hot Chili gives the company a head start in realising its goal of taking two Tier 2 discoveries and combining them to create one potentially massive Tier 1 deposit.

Hot Chili said its first phase of confirmation drilling exceeded expectations, dramatically re-shaping the company’s view of the potential size and grade of the Cortadera discovery.

While only in its infancy, the Cortadera discovery has demonstrated many characteristics commonly associated with major gold-rich, copper-gold porphyry systems.

Pre-collars for the first two diamond holes of the second-phase drill program are complete and double-shift diamond drilling is advancing well.

As well as an extensive exploration effort, Hot Chili is also beefing up its expertise.

Highly regarded porphyry specialist Dr Steve Garwin is coming in as a consultant to Hot Chili’s exploration team to refine their understanding of Cortadera and assist in drill targeting and design.

Garwin has extensive experience with recent Tier-1 copper-gold porphyry discoveries, most notably SolGold’s giant Cascabel deposit in Ecuador and the Batu Hijau deposit in Indonesia.

 

 

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.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in