Hot Chili is accelerating drilling at its top shelf Cortadera copper-gold discovery with the addition of a third rig ahead of a resource upgrade later this year.
The addition of the third rig – another diamond rig – means the company can now complete two deep diamond holes every four to five weeks at the project while having the flexibility to drill test large growth projects.
Diamond drilling is currently testing large extensions to high grade cores and the potential for the two largest porphyries to join at depth.
Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) adds that the arrival of the third rig coincides with the restart of reverse circulation drilling at the exciting 2km long Cortadera North “lookalike” target, which is incidentally one of the previously mentioned large growth projects.
The company is drilling 12 deep RC holes to test the large induced polarisation chargeability anomaly at Cortadera North.
This second phase of drilling is expected to be completed by later March.
Results are currently pending for two deep diamond holes that were completed across the main porphyry – Cuerpo 3.
Both holes recorded very wide visual intersections of porphyry mineralisation.
Cortadera project
The Cortadera project is located 600km north of Chile’s capital Santiago and has a contained resource of 1.7 million tonnes of copper, 1.9 million ounces of gold and almost 10 million ounces of silver.
While substantial, this resource is likely to grow further given Hot Chili’s continued exploration successes such as the discovery of a second high-grade core and a surface anomaly for molybdenum.
A recent result is the 382m intersection grading 0.4 per cent copper and 0.1 grams per tonne gold from 524 metres, including a zone of 80m at 0.6 per cent copper and 0.2g/t gold, in drill hole CRP0052D.
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.