Hot Chili drills at 0.6% CuEq over 658 metres at Costa Fuego, Chile

Hot Chili Ltd. [HCH-TSXV, ASX; HHLKF-OTCQX] reported another outstanding drill result at the Cortadera porphyry deposit, part of the company’s Costa Fuego, coastal range, copper-gold hub in Chile.

Hot Chili’s managing director, Christian Easterday, stated that Cortadera has a record of outperforming expectation. “The PFS in-fill drill program across Cortadera has collected important geotechnical and hydrogeological information and has also continued to define and expand high-grade resources.

“Upgrading our resources with wide drill intersections grading 0.8 per cent to 1.0 per cent copper equivalent is a great outcome, which demonstrates the quality and growth potential of Costa Fuego as one of the only low-altitude, material, copper developments in the world capable of near-term development,” stated Easterday.

Latest results from development study drilling at Cortadera have returned further significant intersections. Diamond drill hole CORMET005 returned 658 metres grading 0.6% CuEq (Copper Equivalent) (0.4% Cu, 0.2 g/t Au, 122 parts per million molybdenum) from 232 metres depth, including 134 metres grading 0.8% CuEq (0.6% Cu, 0.2 g/t Au, 181 ppm Mo) from 470 metres depth, and including 130 metres grading 0.9% CuEq (0.6% Cu, 0.2 g/t Au, 253 ppm Mo) from 662 metres depth.

CORMET005 was drilled across the northern flank to the high-grade core within the main porphyry (Cuerpo 3) at Cortadera. Pleasingly, the wide significant intersection again confirmed further extension to the high-grade core and included an impressive 30 metres grading 1.4% CuEq (1.1% Cu, 0.5 g/t Au, 165 ppm Mo) from 690 metres depth outside of the current high-grade (over 0.6% CuEq) resource model.

The latest result follows the previous two outstanding drill results from Cuerpo 3, which also confirmed further growth of the high-grade core, notably 552 metres at 0.6% CuEq from 276 metres depth, including 248 metres at 0.8% CuEq (CORMET003) as well as 876 metres grading 0.5% CuEq from 246 metres depth, including 206 metres grading 0.9% CuEq (CORMET006).

In addition, diamond drill hole CORMET002 returned 370 metres grading 0.4% CuEq (0.3% Cu, 0.1 g/t Au) from surface, including 20 metres grading 0.8% CuEq (0.6% Cu, 0.4 g/t Au) from 24 metres depth, and including 22 metres grading 1.0% CuEq (0.8% Cu, 0.5 g/t Au) from 136 metres depth at Cuerpo 2. These high-grade intersections were also outside the current high-grade resource at Cuerpo 2.

A final development study diamond drill hole (CORMET004) is being completed at Cortadera and results are also pending for four metallurgical diamond drill holes completed at Productora.

Resource growth drilling has commenced targeting the San Antonio and Valentina high-grade copper deposits, located 5 km northeast of Cortadera. High-grade copper-gold mineralization at both deposits remains open at depth and along strike. Drilling is under way at Valentina where 10 drill holes are planned. A further 13 drill holes are planned at San Antonio.

San Antonio’s maiden inferred resource, reported in March, extends from surface and already stands at 4.2 million tonnes at 1.2% CuEq (1.1% Cu, 2.1 g/t silver). Both high-grade satellite deposits are intended to form part of Costa Fuego’s next resource upgrade and combined PFS open-pit mine schedule later this year.

Platform and access clearing across the Santiago Z exploration target is expected to be complete in the coming week and first-pass drilling is expected to commence following conclusion of drilling at Valentina and San Antonio.

Hot Chili’s soil results and mapping have confirmed a potentially large copper porphyry footprint measuring over 4 km in length and 2 km in width at the Santiago Z landholding, located immediately south of Cortadera.

Hot Chili’s flagship project, Costa Fuego, is the consolidation into a hub of the Cortadera porphyry copper-gold discovery and the Productora copper-gold deposit, set 14 km apart in an excellent location – low altitude, coastal range of Chile, infrastructure rich, low capital intensity. The Costa Fuego landholdings, contains an indicated resource of 725 Mt grading 0.47% CuEq, containing 2.8 Mt copper, 2.6 million ounces gold, 10.4 Moz silver and 67,000 tonnes Mo and an Inferred Resource of 202 Mt grading 0.36% CuEq containing 0.6 Mt copper, 0.4 Moz gold, two Moz silver and 13,000 tonnes Mo, at a cut-off grade of more than 0.21% CuEq for open pit and more than 0.30% CuEq for underground. The company is working to advance its Costa Fuego project through a preliminary feasibility study (followed by a full FS and DTM), and test several high-priority exploration targets.