Hot Chili tipping the scales

The Cortadera maiden mineral resource of 451-million tonnes, at 0.46% copper equivalent, has taken the total mineral resource estimate for the greater Costa Fuego project to 724-million tonnes, at 0.48% copper equivalent for some 2.9-million tonnes of contained copper, 2.7-million ounces of gold, 9.9-million ounces of silver and 64 000 t of molybdenum.

“The Cortadera resource estimate is a strong achievement, given the company only executed a deal to acquire the privately owned discovery in February last year,” said Hot Chili MD Christian Easterday.

“Generating a 451-million-tonne maiden resource for Cortadera a mere 14 km away from our established Productora hub demonstrates the sheer scale of Hot Chili’s Coast Fuego copper hub.”

He noted that the first resource at Cortadera was particularly significant, given that it was just one of two major copper discoveries to have been reported in the world since 2016.

An internal scoping study is now under way to assess a combined development for Costa Fuego, which includes the Cortadera, Productora and San Antonio deposits, involving both openpit and underground operations leveraging off a central processing and existing infrastructure access already secured by Hot Chili.