Special Report: Shallow drilling has hinted at the potential scale of Hot Chili’s already scrumptious Cortadera porphyry copper-gold project in Chile.
Not satisfied with drill results that have established its Cortadera project’s position as one of the most sensational global discoveries in 2019, Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) has now outlined a second large source of bulk tonnage, high-grade copper and gold.
Initial results from a shallow reverse circulation (RC) drill program intersected 80m grading 0.8 per cent copper and 0.3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from surface including a high-grade chalcocite zone of 26m at 1.7 per cent copper and 0.7g/t gold from a depth of 54m at Cuerpo 2, the second largest porphyry at Cortadera.
The drill program is testing the extent of shallow chalcocite enrichment zones across three of Cortadera’s four porphyry centres discovered to date.
Chalcocite is generally considered to be one of most profitable copper ores due to its high copper content and the ease at which copper can be separated from sulphur.
Hot Chili has drilled 13 RC holes with an average depth of 130m to date with results returned for seven holes and results pending for the other six holes.
Approval has also been received to expand its phase 2 drill program that has already returned results that rival some of the world’s most recent and significant copper-gold discoveries including Cascabel in Ecuador and Timok in Serbia.
This includes the most recent intersection of 972m grading 0.5 per cent copper and 0.2g/t gold from surface with an extremely wide 412m zone of higher-grade material of 0.7 per cent copper and 0.3g/t gold with silver and molybdenum credits.
More importantly, the results confirm that a large, vertically extensive core of higher-grade material underpins the Cortadera project.
The expanded program will include first drill testing of the Cuerpo 3 North and Cortadera North targets, which could further grow the size of the Cortadera project.
Hot Chili expects to release more results from this drill program and the expansion diamond drill program early in 2020.
It plans to accelerate drilling activities in 2020 towards a first resource estimate and will advance funding discussions with several large domestic and international groups.
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