Hot Chili Limited (ASX: HCH) (TSXV: HCH) has drilled a new, shallow high grade, copper-silver drill intersection from its Valentina copper deposit in Chile.
The new drill result represents exceptional near-surface grades, providing an exciting potential additional front-end ore source for the company’s Costa Fuego coastal range copper-gold development.
Assays results returned for VALMET0002, a twin Diamond Drill (DD) hole of Reverse Circulation (RC) drill hole VAP0009 recorded 3.0m grading 12.1% CuEq (11.8% Cu & 52.6g/t Ag) within a broader drilling intersection of 12m grading 4.6% CuEq (4.5% Cu & 16.5g/t Ag) from 25m depth down-hole.
The result confirms a significant 120m extension of high grade, copper-silver mineralisation to the south of the historical Valentina underground mine and provides material for development-related metallurgical testwork, key to the inclusion of the Valentina Resource in the Costa Fuego combined prefeasibility study (PFS) due in Q1 2023.
Copper soluble analysis has confirmed that mineralisation is principally sulphide (chalcocite, chalcopyrite, covellite) and amenable to flotation recovery, thus key to Valentina’s potential to contribute to early sulphide cash flow generation.
Valentina Shaping as a High Grade Ore Source Addition at Costa Fuego
Mineralisation at Valentina is now defined over approximately 300m strike, and is open at depth and along strike. In addition to VALMET0002, new significant intersections from the phase-2 drill programme also include:
• 5m grading 1.5% CuEq (1.5% Cu, 7.8g/t Ag) from 179m (VAP0017) including 2m @ 3.3% CuEq (3.2% Cu, 16.4g/t Ag)
• 2m @ 2.0% CuEq (1.9% Cu, 6.7g/t Ag) from 45m (VAP0016)
• 2m @ 1.5% CuEq (1.5% Cu, 9.3g/t Ag) from 68m depth (VAP0013)
• 3m @ 1.5% CuEq (1.4% Cu, 8.2g/t Ag) from 24m (VAP0015) Results have been returned for eleven of the seventeen phase-2 drillholes with assays pending for six drill holes.
Of the 11 drill holes returned, four drill holes recorded significant drill intersections (outlined above), three drill holes intersected the mineralised structure (0.2% to 0.5% Cu), one drill hole intersected historical workings (ineffective), and three drill holes did not intersect mineralisation.
Phase-two drilling at Valentina has focussed on proving continuity of the mineralised trend along-strike and at-depth below the historical shallow underground mine.
The results of VAP0017 (5m grading 1.5% Cu, 7.8g/t Ag, including 2m grading 3.2% Cu, 16.4g/t Ag) confirm continuity of the steeply dipping mineralised host-structure, 100m below historical mine workings.
Importantly, high grade results recorded in VAP0009 and VALMET0002 lie on the southern extent of drilling in an area previously masked at-surface by a shallow horizon of Atacama gravels. Significant extensional potential remains untested in this area.
Mineralisation is interpreted to be fault-hosted, dipping steeply towards the east within a sequence of volcanic-sedimentary units, similar to the deposit setting of the neighbouring San Antonio resource (Inferred resource of 4.2Mt grading 1.2% CuEq (1.1% Cu, 2.1g/t Ag) for 48kt Cu and 287koz Ag)
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