Hot Chili unearths 610m-wide copper intersection ahead of resource upgrade
Hot Chili plans to list on the TSX Venture Exchange in the current quarter.
Chilean copper-gold explorer Hot Chili (ASX: HCH) says drilling at its Cortadera North Flank continues with one hole returning at 610m intersection grading 0.4% copper and 0.1 grams per tonne gold from 216m down hole.
It included a 138m interval grading 0.5% copper equivalent, or 0.6% copper and 0.1g/t gold.
Cortadera is one part of the company’s Costa Fuego copper-gold hub in Chile, the other half being Productora, with the two locations being 14km apart.
The North Flank zone is part of Cuerpo 3, the main porphyry at Cortadera.
This latest 610m intersection follows the recently reported 362m intercept grading 0.6% copper equivalent.
Hot Chili resource development manager Kirsty Sheerin said the expansion of the main porphyry was pleasing ahead of the company’s plans to upgrade the maiden 451 million tonne resource at Cortadera.
“We have added approximately 170m of width to Cuerpo 3 and hope to extend several other open flanks to the high-grade ore by year-end,” she added.
“We are also continuing to see positive shallow intersections in the current RC drilling program at Cuerpo 2.”
Ms Sheerin said the next upgrade at Cortadera will provide a basis for the first combined open pit and block cave mining reserve estimate at Costa Fuego.
The combined resource from the two parts of Costa Fuego now stands at 724Mt grading 0.48% copper equivalent for a contained 2.9Mt copper, 2.7 million ounces gold, 9.9Moz silver and 64,000 tonnes molybdenum.
At Cuerpo, three rigs are now operating to upgrade the resource.
The company is at present awaiting 4,946m of assay results pending from 20 drill holes, with assay turnaround now standing at 44 days.
‘Momentum building’ ahead of Canadian listing
Hot Chile notes that it is the only major copper-gold explorer in the Americas that is not listed in Canada.
It said today that Hot Chili plans to continue building momentum ahead of its Toronto Venture exchange listing in the December quarter by means of its activities and news flow.
Several updates are expected from ongoing drilling and exploration.
Following its dual listing in Canada, the company says it aims to release a major resource upgrade for Cortadera.
Hot Chili has said previously that combining Cortadera and Productora into Costa Fuego as one central development hub has cemented the project as one of the largest copper developments in Chile.