Hot Chili has nailed a 596m long copper-gold drill intersection at its emerging Cuerpo 3 deposit as the Perth-based company ramps up exploration at the Cortadera copper-gold discovery in central Chile, returning a trifecta of stunning and consistent results over the last few months.
The ASX-listed junior said this week that its latest hole, had returned an intersection of 596 metres at 0.5% copper and 0.2g/t gold starting from a depth of 328m down-hole.
Importantly, the drill intercept also contains a higher-grade zone comprising 184m at 0.7% copper and 0.3 g/t gold from 430m.
This early exploratory drilling has confirmed that a newly uncovered, bulk tonnage, higher-grade zone extends from the northern to the southern flank of Cortadera’s main copper-gold porphyry zone at Cuerpo 3.
The new hit is over 300m from the original discovery diamond hole that returned 188m at 0.9% copper and 0.4g/t gold from 516m in late June.
The entire southern flank of the porphyry is now open and therefore, higher-grade copper-gold mineralisation could extend right across Cortadera’s main porphyry zone, management said.
Located southeast of Hot Chili’s open-pit Productora copper-gold-molybdenum deposit, Cortadera has now returned several highly encouraging drill results following the company’s bid to acquire a 100% interest in the privately-held venture earlier this year.
A third deep vertical diamond drill hole is now complete at Cuerpo 3 and a fourth hole is currently underway.
The third hole recorded broad intersections of mineralised porphyry from 50m to 330m down-hole and a stronger zone from 494m to 622m down-hole.
Assay results are still pending for this hole.
Hot Chili is fully funded to complete up to 13 additional deep holes as part of the phase two work program and upon completion of this work, an initial mineral resource estimate should be established for Cortadera.
The company recently completed a $12.1 million capital raising to help it develop what it says is one of the South American country’s most significant copper-gold porphyry finds of the past decade.
The phase two drill program will also include shallow RC holes associated with near-surface high-grade chalcocite zones intersected in drilling across Cortadera’s three other outcropping porphyry centres.
With a potentially mammoth resource shaping up now at Cortadera just 14km from the already impressive Productora deposit, Hot Chili looks like it is onto a significant, tier-1, bulk tonnage, copper-gold deposit that just might become irresistible in time to any majors that might happen to be sniffing around.
One thing seems certain, however, most of them would now have Hot Chili on their watch lists.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting ? Contact : matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
