New drilling by Glencore (LSE: GLEN)-backed Hot Chili (ASX, TSX-V: HCH; US-OTC: HHLKF) has extended shallow copper-gold mineralization at its La Verde porphyry discovery in coastal Chile, strengthening the case for potential feed to the nearby Costa Fuego project.
Hole DKP075 lengthens a previously reported partial intersection to 188 metres grading 0.44% copper and 0.16 gram gold per tonne from 24 metres depth, Hot Chili said Thursday in a statement. It also intersected 29 metres grading 0.39% copper and 0.15 gram gold from 304 metres to the end of the hole.
With more than 35,000 metres of drilling already carried out at La Verde, Perth-based Hot Chili is aiming to complete an initial resource for the property by Dec. 31. Management’s goal is to use ore from La Verde to feed a planned processing plant for Costa Fuego – a copper-gold project about 30 km to the north — to cut costs. Both projects sit at low elevation in Chile’s Atacama region, about 600 km north of Santiago.
A coherent, higher-grade near-surface zone at La Verde could support low-strip-ratio open-pit mining during the early years of Costa Fuego’s 20-year mine plan, Hot Chili says.
Development plan
Hot Chili’s latest drill results “further speak to La Verde’s near (at) surface potential, which stands to significantly enhance Costa Fuego’s already robust 2025 prefeasibility study (PFS) mine plan with (higher-grade) ‘satellite’ feed,” ATB Cormark mining analyst Stefan Ioannou said Friday in a note.
Other drill highlights include hole DKP067, which cut 112 metres grading 0.40% copper and 0.10 gram gold from 42 metres downhole, including 26 metres of 0.59% copper and 0.14 gram gold from 62 metres.
Hole DKP078, meanwhile, intersected 240 metres grading 0.30% copper and 0.17 gram gold from 36 metres downhole. This included 54 metres grading 0.41% copper and 0.26 gram gold from 46 metres.
Assays from 25 drillholes remain pending.
Hot Chili plans to evaluate incorporating La Verde into a revised Costa Fuego PFS, which will be used to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment for the project in next year’s second quarter. This will initiate a roughly two-year approval process in support of a production start-up targeted for 2031.
Higher grade
Based on drilling to date, La Verde could potentially host more than 500 million tonnes of higher-grade satellite feed for Costa Fuego, Ioannou said in his note.
Costa Fuego hosts 502 million probable tonnes grading 0.37% copper, 0.1 gram gold, 0.49 gram silver and 97 parts per million molybdenum, according to a March 2025 reserve. Contained metal amounts to 1.86 million tonnes copper, 1.58 million oz. gold, 7.95 million oz. silver and 49,000 tonnes molybdenum.
Assuming an 8% discount rate, Costa Fuego has an after-tax net present value of $1.2 billion (C$1.7 billion), an internal rate of return of 19% and a payback period of 4.5 years, according to the 2025 PFS. Pre-production expenditures are estimated at $1.27 billion.
Copper production is estimated at 95,000 tonnes a year for the first 14 years.
Hot Chili shares rose 0.7% to C$1.51 apiece Friday morning in Toronto, valuing the company at about C$306 million ($215 million). The stock has traded between C70¢ and C$2.08 in the past year.
Glencore owns 7.5% of Hot Chili.
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