(Alliance News) - Europa Metals Ltd said Friday new findings from testwork at its Toral project in Spain are "significantly above average" versus concentrates available in the current market.
The European focused lead-zinc and silver developer's London shares were up 1.8% at 13.74 pence. They were up 26% in Johannesburg to ZAR3.54 each.
As a result, Europa said its project, located in northern Spain, can now be ranked "amongst the highest concentrate grades globally".
Chief Executive Laurence Read said: "Today's Phase III metallurgical results, conducted by Wardell Armstrong International, and ore sorting analysis from TOMRA/Bara demonstrate excellent lead, zinc and silver recovery and grades for the Toral project in addition to identifying certain economic benefits that could result from the implementation of ore sorting during potential future mining activities."
Europa said it is "extremely pleased" with the "high-grade" sample results from TOD-025, but noted the ore sorting could well bring new areas of the deposit's overall resource into the mineable area, having previously been discounted due to the low-grade nature of the ore.
The "excellent" grade recovery from TOD-025 included 83.9% lead recovery to a 79.2% lead concentrate; 87.7% silver recovery to 512 parts per million silver within lead concentrate; and 87.7% zinc recovery to a 60.0% zinc concentrate.
Read continued: "We are now progressing work with Bara to determine the impact of the recent metallurgical studies, ore sorting, updated resource estimate and other work conducted since the 2018 scoping study, on the prospective economics for the Toral project. Europa Metals looks forward to updating the market on revised economic parameters for Toral and on the pre-feasibility study workstreams underway in due course."
Executive Chair Myles Campion added that the latest set of metallurgical results "indicate the potential to exploit further" the resource at Toral.
He continued: "In addition, by investigating the use of XRT in our process route, we expect increased optionality in terms of mining rates and throughput flexibility. Combining the ore sorting results with the very impressive lead concentrate grades achieved from the TOD-025 sample, we firmly believe that Europa Metals is continuing to demonstrate that Toral can provide a high-grade concentrate, whilst allowing for a flexible mining approach."
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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Europa Metals (EUZ)