Source : THE AGE NEWS
By Doug Bright
Hot Chili has secured the milestone government registrations necessary to help fast-track its Costa Fuego copper-gold and Huasco Water projects in Chile.
The registrations, before Chile’s Office for Sustainable Project Management, confirm the two projects meet the government’s key criteria for consideration for a list of strategic investment projects that could be prioritised through a streamlined administrative approvals process.
Hot Chili has received registrations for its Costa Fuego copper-gold project and its Huasco Water project on Chile’s coastal range. The water project will involve drawing seawater from an intake near the coastal port of Huasco.
Part of the office’s objectives is to optimise and accelerate approvals for projects that promote sustainability.
Hot Chili’s maiden combined probable open pit and underground ore reserves for its Costa Fuego project stands at 502 million tonnes at 0.37 per cent copper, 0.10 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 0.49g/t silver and 97 parts per million molybdenum across multiple processing streams. The streams include the sulphide concentrator, oxide leach and low-grade sulphide leach processes.
The total combined metal in the reserves is a heady 1.86Mt copper, 1.58M ounces of gold, 7.95M ounces silver and 49,000t molybdenum.
Significant additional opportunity exists to extend the overall resource numbers with the company’s recent discovery of copper-gold porphyry mineralisation at its non-contiguous but nearby La Verde project.
La Verde is the latest addition to Hot Chili’s Costa Fuego production hub. It is only 50 kilometres south by road from the company’s central processing facility at Productora, within the company’s Costa Fuego group of projects.
The Costa Fuego complex is on Chile’s coastal range and comprises the company’s principal reserves zones at Productora, Alice, San Antonio and Cortadera, which all lie within a radius of about 10km.
The centre of the company’s contiguous tenure and its current resources is about 63km southeast of the port city of Huasco, in the Huasco province of the nation’s highly prospective Atacama region.
Huasco plays an important role in Hot Chili’s plans, as it is the proposed location for the seawater intake for the company’s Huasco Water project.
Huasco Water is an joint venture between Hot Chili and Chilean mining company Compañia Minera Del Pacifico. With its first-mover advantage, Huasco Water is the only company permitted to supply seawater in the Huasco Valley region, following a 10-year regulatory approval process.
The combined projects possess a valuable, unique and strategic mix for Hot Chili over the next decade and have what the company describes as a “top quartile copper production capacity with lowest quartile capital intensity”.
Hot Chili undertook March pre-feasibility studies for the water and the Costa Fuego gold-copper projects. A positive study outcome provides Hot Chili with an opportunity to consider the strategic value of its 80%-owned subsidiary company Huasco Water, which controls all its critical water assets.
The company sees significant value potential in outsourcing its vital seawater supply infrastructure and has secured Huasco Water’s position by executing a memorandum of understanding for a ground-breaking seawater offtake agreement for a proposed large-scale, multi-customer water business.
Its stage one water supply pre-feasibility study examined the delivery of 500 litres per second (L/s) of seawater, followed by a stage two 1300L/s of desalinated seawater supply.
A conceptual stage three study looked at future expansion to supply up to 2300L/s of desalinated water.
The staged approach considers the initial establishment of seawater supply infrastructure, including pumps and pipelines, towards the end of the decade, to be followed by an initial desalinated water supply and then subsequent phases of expansion.
It would enable long-term water supply to be scaled to regional demand growth to support mining, communities and agriculture in the Huasco Valley, with the potential to extend well beyond the project’s initial horizons.
The concept is further supported by significant interest in Huasco Water displayed by other Chilean and international water infrastructure investment groups, along with nearby mine developers, agricultural and community groups and government bodies.
Hot Chili says while long permitting timelines continue, its desalination permitting is progressing and no regulatory changes have been made to Chile’s maritime permitting process since Huasco Water was granted its concession.
Additionally, the company’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) is advancing, with its stage one seawater supply baseline studies completed for inclusion in its Costa Fuego EIA.
The latest registration is a significant milestone that confirms Hot Chili’s projects meet the Chilean government’s objective criteria to acquire priority status.
With the paperwork in hand for both Costa Fuego and Huasco Water, the company is now able to centralise and monitor all of its active permitting processes through a single platform and supervisory entity.
The current permitting needs include the company’s second maritime concession application for Huasco Water and its upcoming EIA submission for Costa Fuego and Huasco Water.
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