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Things hot up in Chile

ot Chili Ltd has navigated choppy wa- ue the trend. uador and spent 10 years with Newmont
Hters before and with an ugly tidal wave At $US2.15/lb copper, there is poten- Corp in the US.
approaching, the company has managed tial for Hot Chili to receive $US400,000- “Garwin says that Cortadera being a
to organise a vest to float with. 500,000 in annual payments through its ‘soft in the middle’ porphyry has character-
Late in March, a non-binding offer from 80% interest in the JV company. istics associated with the best porphyries,
Chilean government agency Empresa Na- Meanwhile, the royalty component of the which exhibit these high-grade centres
cional de Mineria (ENAMI) for the lease offer provides potential payment upside in that can be developed through under-
mining and processing of ore from Produc- light of a higher copper price or higher cop- ground extraction,” Easterday said.
tora was accepted by Hot Chili. per ore grades. Cortadera is growing quickly and some
Despite a decade featuring numerous Productora was the flagship project Hot analysts agree, with Argonaut suggest-
headwinds, Productora is well down the Chili floated on in 2010 and in the coming ing Cortadera could host 370mt of higher
development path, with a 2016 PFS indi- weeks a formalised deal to see it onstream grade mineralised ore at grades of 0.5%
cating $US720 million would be required could be made. copper and 0.2 g/t gold, similar copper but
to build the 11-year project. However, while the immediate future of potentially higher gold grades than Pro-
Total resources at Productora includes Productora plays out, the focus for Hot ductora.
a high-grade component of 236.6mt @ Chili remains the 2019 acquisition – Cor- Hot Chili was drilling at Cortadera last
0.48% copper and 0.1 g/t gold and a lower- tadera. month but has now stopped work in the
grade resource of 218mt @ 0.16% and 0.0 An update on the payment plan for Cor- face of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead,
4g/t. tadera was expected soon, while the mar- the company is turning to economics.
Funding a project of Productora’s size ket continues to digest what exactly Hot “Cortadera is a once in a lifetime discov-
has always proved difficult, therefore Chili has stumbled upon. ery. Now is a good time to get under way
ENAMI’s interest for lease mining and pro- “People know the Hot Chili of old and with resource work and an internal scop-
cessing 120,000 tpa through its Vallenar the Productora story that never really got ing study to see what we are working with
plant, 15km north of Productora, repre- there. Not only are we facing a standalone and work on value-adds for the project this
sents a lifeline. project, but it is twice as big as Produc- year,” Easterday said.
The non-binding offer by ENAMI cov- tora within six months of drilling,” Hot Chili “There are large corporates showing
ers mining of the central lease at Produc- managing director Christian Easterday interest and there are a lot of catalysts to
tora only (a sixteenth of the entire pro- told Paydirt. deliver a project at a low cost.”
ject) for two years, with the JV company “Hot Chili hasn’t seen a coastal porphyry
80%-owned by Hot Chili receiving $US2/t like this and it is quiet hard to find some- – Mark Andrews
ore processed and a 10% royalty for the thing like this. Steve Garwin, our lead tech-
sale value of extracted minerals. nical consultant, is getting us up the curve See Drillbits sponsored by Capital Drilling
Higher-grade ore processed at Produc- with Cortadera.” on pages 54-55 for the latest results from
tora in the past has produced in excess of Garwin was instrumental in the discov- Cortadera
1% copper and ENAMI expects to contin- ery of Solgold plc’s Cascabel project in Ec-

Christian Easterday

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT aPRIL 2020 Page 11