The Hot Chili Ltd (ASX: HCH) share price is on the move today. Hot Chili's shares were up 19% earlier in the day before giving back some of those gains. In later afternoon trading the share price is up 10.81%.
This follows on from the company's ASX release this morning detailing the promising results of its first mineral resource estimate for its Cortadera project in Chile.
The big gains will come as welcome news to long time shareholders, who witnessed a 75% collapse in the share price from late January through to early April. Since 2 April, the Hot Chili share price has surged 310%. That's enough to put shareholders up 2.5% year to date.
For comparison the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 7.2% since 2 January.
What does Hot Chili do?
Hot Chili is primarily a copper explorer, though the company keeps a keen eye on its gold and silver resources as well. As its name implies, Hot Chili's projects are located in Chile, in what the company labels Region III along the coastal range.
The company's stated goal is to establish a central copper hub named Costa Fuego. This hub would encompass its 3 projects, Cortadera, Productora and San Antonio.
Hot Chili has a market cap of $89 million.
What did Hot Chili announce to the ASX to see its share price soar?
This morning Hot Chili announced promising results from the first mineral resource estimate (41% indicated and 59% inferred) for its Cortadera project. This represents one of only two major copper discoveries reported across the globe in the past 4 years.
The results indicated 724 million tonnes grading 0.48% copper equivalent for 2.9 million tonnes of copper; 2.7 million ounces of gold; 9.9 million ounces of silver; and 64,000 tonnes of molybdenum.
The company noted that the maiden Cortadera resource adds 451 million tonnes grading 0.46% copper equivalent. It said this now positions Hot Chili with the largest copper mineral resource and amongst the largest gold mineral resources for any emerging ASX companies.
Addressing the results, Hot Chili's Managing Director Christian Easterday said:
The Cortadera resource estimate is a strong achievement given the company only executed a deal to acquire the privately owned discovery in February 2019… Generating a 451Mt maiden Resource for Cortadera a mere 14km away from our established Productora deposit (273Mt Resource) demonstrates the sheer scale of Hot Chili's Coast Fuego copper hub.
Cortadera has a high grade core of 104Mt grading 0.74% copper equivalent and this has strong potential to continue growing rapidly with further drilling… We look forward to an exciting 12 months ahead with further drilling results and resource growth.
With the company planning a second mineral resource estimate for Cortadera in 2021, Hot Chili's share price is one to watch.
