Europa Metals releases positive drilling results from Toral Project

Europa Metals announced results from the second phase of drilling for lead, zinc, silver and copper at its Toral Project in Spain on Thursday, confirming all three infill diamond drill holes intersected lead, zinc and silver mineralisation.

The AIM-traded firm said the drill holes represented the initial infill drilling of the Phase II programme, with the results confirming block model grade and thickness.

It said its drilling strategy was to remove 'gaps' within the known resource, all within 300 metres of topographic surface, and to identify geotechnical characteristics of a possible decline or entry route for preliminary years of mining.

Significant results included 3.8m at 5.87% Zn equivalent at drill hole TOD-018, and reportable copper mineralisation intercepted within 280 meters of surface at drill hole TOD-020.

It said further investigation there was now underway, following 0.68% Cu at three meters, including one metre at 1.34% Cu.

The three diamond holes totalled 980.50 metres into the current defined JORC mineral resource estimate area.

Drilling was reportedly completed on budget and to schedule, within the pre-existing defined resource area as the firm had previously announced.

Europa said it was now building results into existing datasets, and correlating with its ongoing surface mapping programme, to be completed in the first quarter of 2019.

“Our limited, focused drill programme has given us a promising results, confirming the block model results and geological theory of increasing grade with depth,” said Europa’s technical director Myles Campion.

“I look forward to 2019 and expanding the infill drilling into the deeper, high grade core of Toral.”

Laurence Read, the company’s executive director, added that the first phase of the diamond drilling programme was designed to investigate gaps within the existing resource and begin to build a schedule for the first few years of a potential mining project, with all drilling conducted within 300 meters of surface.

“The copper result is unexpected at this depth and again we see another occurrence of high grade mineralisation appearing nearer to surface,” Read said.

“With a metre in excess of 1% we shall now work to determine the source of the copper at Toral.

“We look forward to putting out results of further work at our Toral Project in early 2019.”