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The junior said the investment by Glencore was an endorsement of the wider Costa Fuego copper-gold, which is emerging as a globally significant, low-altitude development.
Hot Chili describes its 451 million tonne Cortadera discovery in Chile as one of two major copper finds since 2016, the other being Rio Tinto's remote, deep Winu discovery in Western Australia.
Glencore's backing will help Hot Chili complete a feasibility study on Costa Fuego.
Glencore has the first to appoint one director to Hot Chili, and members to the development's technical steering committee.
It will also take over 60% of concentrate produced over eight years, on arms-length terms, assuming Glencore maintains at least 7.5% in Hot Chili.
A resource upgrade for the Cortadera porphyries, where drilling shows the two largest join at depth, is expected later this year.
Recent drilling returned a high-grade 144m at 1% copper equivalent from 706m demonstrating strong continuity across northern flank of main porphyry and potential for lateral expansion of the high-grade core at Cortadera.
There are three drill rigs on site.
A prefeasibility study has commenced over development options for the Cortadera and Productora deposits, building on a Productora PFS from 2016. Cortadera was only secured in early 2019.
The PFS will consider a concentrator and leach development with a throughput range of 20-30Mtpa. It is expected to be complete in late 2022.
Costa Fuego's combined resource base sits at 724Mt grading 0.48% copper equivalent for 2.9Mt copper, 2.7 million ounces gold, 9.9Moz silver and 64,000t molybdenum. The company is hoping to define 5Mt of contained copper.
Hot Chili started the quarter with $3.4 million cash.
The stock has traded between 2.6-5.8c over the past year, and closed last week at 3.6c, valuing it at $112 million.
