Hot Chili Ltd (ASX:HCH) is preparing to add the La Verde open pit copper mine to its Costa Fuego copper-gold project in Chile, hoping to take advantage of its proximity to the latter, and location within the historic Domeyko mining district.

La Verde – which is located 30 kilometres south of Costa Fuego, in Chile’s Atacama region – is made up of historical open pit workings, and has a history of private interests exploiting its shallow porphyry copper oxide mineralisation, with the latter occurring across a strike extent of around 800 metres, with widths of up to 200 metres and depths of up to 15 metres.

The mine area has also experienced very little drilling activity, with historic drilling only occurring on surrounding leases.

Hot Chili has entered into a three-year Option Agreement to take on the copper mine, which is also in the middle of the company’s recently consolidated landholding in the Domeyko district. The acquisition will mark the first time that the La Verde system has been held by a single party.

As part of its investment in the district, the company has undertaken exploration activities – including soil geochemistry, mapping and magnetics surveys – since April, and recently extended this over the La Verde copper mine area as part of the Company’s due diligence process, prior to the Option Agreement execution.

Additionally, the company kicked off a first pass drilling program in late October, with this comprising 11 RC drill holes for approximately 4,000 metres. Two holes for 800 metres have been completed, and have confirmed wide intersections of porphyry-style copper mineralisation in both holes, based on visual logging, with assay results pending.

Hot Chili is trading at 83.5 cents – a rise of 0.6% since the market opened.

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