London-listed Europa Metals (AIM:EUZ ) has hailed “excellent” high-grade recovery results from the second phase metallurgical testing at its Toral project located in north-west Spain.
The lead-zinc and silver projects developer said the results demonstrated Toral’s potential for high-grade marketable and saleable lead and zinc concentrates that were at the higher end of management's expectations.
The report from Wardell Armstrong (WAI) showed 83.7% lead recovery to 60% lead concentrate, 87.1% silver recovery to 1,350 parts per million gold within lead concentrate, and 77% zinc recovery to a 59.1% zinc concentrate.
The results showed that lead recovery had remained ‘broadly unchanged’ versus the lead recoveries obtained from the first locked cycle test, whilst lead concentrate grade increased 2.5% and zinc recovery 6.3%, with a 3.3% increase in concentrate grade.
The group said that an analysis of the final concentrates for deleterious elements indicates the need for more testwork to keep them below the level that could incur a penalty from off-takers/smelters.
Shares in Europa Metals were trading 12.50% higher at 0.018p this morning.
Wardell Armstrong has therefore recommended further testing to confirm the existence of deleterious elements across other parts of the deposit and, if present, to consider potential methods with which to limit or mitigate their impact.
However, Europa said the concentrates were free from a number of deleterious elements otherwise present in concentrates from the region, including iron, arsenic and bismuth.
Europa said it intends to immediately commence an analysis of ore sorting as a specific optimisation route, which has presented itself as ‘a viable possibility’ from WAI's findings.
Myles Campion, Technical Director of Europa said this would include “an assessment of the amenability of the lower grade mineralisation, present in a distinct lithological unit in the upper portion of the deposit, via the application of XRT ore sorting technology.”
He added that the group would also undertake a new round of metallurgical work on the high-grade intersection from hole TOD-025 to supply data and further concentrate analysis.
“We believe that Toral has the potential to be a near term producer of silver, lead and zinc but that further work must be carried out on the flow sheet before looking to move towards future development,” added Laurence Read, Executive Director of Europa.
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