ASX Round-Up: Looking at Hot Chili and Highlands Pacific

For investors focused on the resource space, a good way to track companies listed in Australia is to look at the S&P/ASX 300 (INDEXASX:XKO). The index includes all S&P/ASX 200 (INDEXASX:XJO) companies as well as about 100 smaller-cap companies, and as of April 2015 accounted for 74 percent of the Australian equities market. Specifically, the S&P/ASX 300 Metal & Mining (INDEXASX:XMM) division is a great source for companies to watch.

Resource Investing News is thus profiling companies on the S&P/ASX 300 Metal & Mining index. This week the focus is on Hot Chili (ASX:HCH) and Highlands Pacific (ASX:HIG).

Hot Chili is an acquisition and development company that focuses on copper and multi-commodity projects in Chile. The company has four projects throughout Chile in various stages of development. In the long term, Hot Chili hopes to become one of the world’s foremost copper producers.

In late March, the company issued a corporate presentation that outlines the status of its Chilean holdings. Its flagship Productora project has mineral resources of over 1 million tonnes of copper and nearly 700,000 ounces of gold, and the company believes inventory at the site will continue to grow. Hot Chili is currently conducting a prefeasibility study on the project, and expects to receive the results of this work by the end of 2015.

With percentage or whole ownership of a variety of projects in Papua New Guinea, Highlands Pacific believes it’s advancing some of the country’s most important copper, gold and nickel assets. Company mines hold reserves of gold, copper, nickel and cobalt, and Highlands recently announced the start of exploratory drilling at its Star Mountain project, a joint venture with Anglo American (LSE:AAL).

The company also co-developed the Nenatec Process with Glencore ​(LSE:GLEN). This process treats concentrates produced from refractory base and precious metals ores, and could provide the company with additional revenue in the future.

Related reading: 

ASX Round-Up: Focus on Reward Minerals and TNG

ASX Round-Up: Prairie Mining, Doray Minerals in the Spotlight