Hot Chili Limited : - Costa Fuego Lifts Growth Horizon

Published: 2021-09-17 10:28:48 ET HCH.AX

Hot Chili Limited (ASX: HCH) (OTCQB: HHLKF) ('Hot Chili' or 'Company') is pleased to announce that it is preparing to commence drilling a series of large-scale exploration targets in parallel with resource expansion drilling at its Costa Fuego copper-gold development hub in Chile.

Costa Fuego combined resource base currently stands of 724Mt grading 0.48% CuEq for 2.9Mt copper, 2.7Moz gold, 9.9Moz silver and 64kt molybdenum.

Expansion drilling at Cortadera continues to deliver strong growth ahead of a planned major resource upgrade and the Company has accelerated exploration across its coastal range landholdings over the past year. Exploration workstreams have included expanded surface geochemical surveys, detailed surface mapping, completion of ground magnetic surveys and the Company's first-ever application of advanced threedimensional (3D) geochemical targeting.

The Company plans to commence drilling its pipeline of large exploration growth targets in Q4 this year using a dedicated fourth drill rig. Two of these targets have been recently generated by 3D geochemical modelling and represent potential game changers for the scale of Costa Fuego.

Highlights

Advanced Three-Dimensional (3D) Geochemical targeting, using multielement surface geochemical data, has been applied for the first time across Hot Chili's consolidated Costa Fuego copper-gold development hub in Chile

The 3D geochemical approach generated probability models which accurately mirrored existing copper resource models at both Cortadera and Productora

Two, large-scale, 3D geochemical targets have been identified as high probability for immediate drill testing- Productora Central and Santiago Z - both considered potential game changers for Costa Fuego's growing resource base

Both new 3D geochemical targets are larger in size than the main porphyry (Cuerpo 3) at the Company's Cortadera copper-gold discovery, where three drill rigs are currently operating to upgrade its maiden 451Mt resource

A fourth drill rig is being secured to commence exploration drilling at Productora Central in Q4 this year and regulatory approval for drilling at Santiago Z is expected in December.

Next assay results from resource expansion drilling at Cortadera expected shortly

Two Large 3D Geochemical Targets Added to Costa Fuego Exploration Pipeline

The relatively new 3D geochemical technique was applied to the Company's extensive multielement (48 elements) surface geochemical datasets collected across the Cortadera, Santiago Z and Productora landholdings within Costa Fuego. Probability models of potential mineralisation were generated by Fathom Geophysics, using advanced algorithms developed from an extensive study of the spatial distribution of pathfinder element associations across the Yerrington copper-gold porphyry deposit in Nevada, USA (928Mt grading 0.51% Cu, 0.05g/t Au and 1.85g/t Ag - source USGS) (Cohen, 2011 and Halley et al, 2015).

Further extensional surface geochemistry and mapping programmes are currently underway across the Cortadera project to further resolve the Cortadera North growth target ahead of 3D geochemical modelling and next exploration drilling. This work is part of a larger exploration rationalisation and prioritisation process underway across the Company's landholdings. Hot Chili looks forward to lifting its growth horizon over the coming twelve months by leveraging its regional consolidation strategy with new discoveries and potential acquisitions.

Contact:

Christian Easterday

Tel: +61 8 9315 9009

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.hotchili.net.au