Hot Chili stacks shallow high-grade copper hits in Chile
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Rowena Duckworth
Hot Chili is turning up the heat at its La Verde copper-gold discovery in Chile, delivering another remarkable batch of shallow high-grade results that continue to firm up the case for a potential higher-grade starter pit within its flagship Costa Fuego development.
Fresh assays from two diamond tail extension holes have reinforced the emergence of a broad, near-surface zone of stronger copper-gold mineralisation stretching across a 400m by 400m footprint. Crucially, the new results sit immediately beneath shallow gravel cover, suggesting that future overburden removal could be simple and cost-effective.
In one extension hole, a massive intercept of 150m came back with 0.52 per cent copper equivalent, comprising 0.37 per cent copper and 0.21 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from just 30m depth, including 38m grading 0.70 per cent copper equivalent from 117m.
The second hole returned a hefty 220m running 0.47 per cent copper equivalent from 38m depth, including a solid 68m scoring 0.64 per cent copper equivalent from 187m.
These hits stack neatly above a previously reported hole, which coughed up 148m grading 0.82 per cent copper equivalent from 70m depth, reinforcing a growing, coherent high-grade zone that could materially enhance early mine scheduling.
La Verde sits just 30km south of Hot Chili’s planned central processing hub for Costa Fuego in Chile’s coastal Atacama region, home to some of the world’s giant porphyry deposits. The discovery is increasingly shaping as a potential sweetener to the company’s broader development plans, with management flagging that a higher-grade starter pit could significantly reduce payback and improve the key financial metrics posted in a March 2025 pre-feasibility study.
But the shallow story looks set to be only part of the picture.
Deeper drilling is now punching into what appears to be an expanding high-grade core. One of the latest drill holes lit up with plentiful visual copper porphyry-style mineralisation over a width of around 150m between 580m and 730m depth. Geologists have logged the copper sulphide mineral, chalcopyrite, at an average abundance of greater than 1 per cent, with several zones exceeding 3 per cent across the interval. And with 34.5 per cent copper in chalcopyrite, this equates to potential grades worthy of attention.
While assays for this hole are not expected until April, the visual sulphide intensity suggests La Verde’s core may be thickening at depth – a classic porphyry signature that can often underpin scale.
Additional diamond tail extensions are also expanding the system laterally and have pushed the more than 0.4 per cent copper mineralised footprint further east, broadening the overall envelope.
With the raft of new results now starting to deliver, the company is wasting no time accelerating its phase two program, with double-shift diamond drilling underway and a second reverse circulation rig expected to kick off shortly.
Costa Fuego is widely regarded as one of the world’s premier undeveloped copper plays, hosting a colossal 798-million-tonne resource grading 0.45 per cent copper equivalent. The monster inventory packs in 2.9Mt of copper, 2.6 million ounces of gold, 12.9 million ounces of silver and 68,000t of molybdenum.
Metallurgical test work using seawater, consistent with the broader Costa Fuego environmental and economic strategies, has indicated recoveries similar to those achieved at Cortadera, supporting the view that La Verde mineralisation should integrate cleanly into the existing development plan.
Conceptual open pit shells at copper prices of US$3.50/lb and US$6.00/lb have further illustrated the potential scale, although the company stresses that these represent exploration targets rather than defined resources.
As copper prices continue to accelerate due to AI and electrification and gold trades near record highs, La Verde is rapidly emerging as more than just a satellite discovery.
If ongoing drilling continues to grow the shallow, high-grade footprint while thickening the deeper core, Hot Chili may be cooking up a serious addition to the Costa Fuego copper-gold story.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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