European Metals shares plummet amid Czech memorandum termination

European Metals Holdings attempted to alleviate shareholder concern after its shares fell over 20% on Friday following an announcement from the Czech government.

Statements from Thomas Huner, Czech minister of industry and trade, indicated he wanted to terminate a memorandum of understanding between the mineral exploration and development company and his ministry.

The memorandum outlined mutual willingness between the two parties to explore downstream processing opportunities, research into lithium processing and future cooperation and exploration of agreements.

However, the AIM-traded company stressed that termination of the memorandum would "not in any way affect the exploration rights of the company or the company's tenure over its exploration permits."

In a statement, European Metals further said: "The company remains entirely focused on working with all stakeholders, including the ministry of industry and trade and the government of the Czech Republic, to successfully develop the Cinovec Project as a first-in-kind project that will pave the way for a successful lithium mining and processing industry in the Czech Republic."

European Metals controls the lithium and tin Cinovec Project through its wholly owned subsidiary Geomet.

The project is on the Czech German border to the north of Prague and “hosts a globally significant hard rock lithium deposit with a total Indicated mineral resource of 348Mt @ 0.45% Li2O and 0.04% Sn and an inferred mineral resource of 309Mt @ 0.39% Li2O and 0.04% Sn containing a combined 7.0 million tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent and 263kt of tin,” according to European Metals.

As of 1522 GMT, European Metals Holding’s shares were down 22.73% at 21.25p.