(Alliance News) - Europa Metals Ltd on Friday said it has started mobilisation activities for a further diamond drilling campaign at the Toral lead, zinc and silver project.
The dual-listed company also said it has initiated geotechnical and hydrogeological work programmes at the project, which is located in the region of Castilla y Leon, north west Spain.
Europa Metals said these workstreams have been instigated following an extensive review of the project.
The new diamond drilling campaign will initially focus on a target area to the west of the Toral's resource area, Europa Metals noted. The overall objective of the drill programme will be to seek to increase confidence levels in the resource within the proposed future mining area of the Toral project.
Turning to geotechnical and hydrogeological programmes, Europa Metals said it will seek to ascertain the sub surface conditions of the defined resource area in order to advance the mine design work and associated sequencing.
Following completion of such preliminary geotechnical and hydrogeological works, the drilling is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2020, Europa Metals said. This planned further drilling will enable the company to enhance and assess the potential economic mine design for the Toral project.
"In a modern day mining context, accurate assessment of hydrogeological issues are crucial from the standpoint of both best practice sustainability and operational viability," explained Executive Director Laurence Read.
Looking ahead, Europa Metals said the metallurgical testwork being conducted by Wardell Armstrong LLP remains on schedule for completion in the final quarter of 2019.
With the majority of the intended metallurgical testwork completed, Europa Metals said the programme is now entering its final phase, being the locked cycle testwork, which is expected to culminate in initial results, demonstrating the potential recovery and grade of concentrate obtainable from the Toral project.
"The metallurgical testwork is progressing well and once completed, and the results analysed, we shall use the findings to begin optimising what we believe to be a low capex project with potentially highly attractive operating margins and a significant silver component," added Read.
Europa Metals shares were untraded in Johannesburg on Friday, last closing at ZAR0.01 each, while in London the shares closed 2.1% lower on Thursday at 0.027 pence each.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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Europa Metals (EUZ)