Europa Metals (AIM:EUZ) unveiled excellent lead, zinc and silver recovery and grades for its Toral Project in Spain following metallurgical testwork by consultancy Wardell Armstrong.
The European-focused lead-zinc and silver developer said Phase III independent testwork at the site had uncovered both recovery and grade results believed by Europa Metal's Board to be ‘significantly above average versus concentrates available in the current market.’
The Board said it believes lead concentrate grade uncovered at Toral, which is combined to a cleaner and scavenger product, ‘ranks amongst the highest concentrate grades globally.’
Europa also reported the findings of a successful ore sorting analysis programme at Toral carried out by WAI and TOMRA GmbH ("TOMRA") and overseen by Bara Consulting ("Bara").
The group reported ‘excellent’ grade and recovery results from its high-grade metallurgical sample, TOD-025H, while results for TOD-024, a weathered sample, and TOD-025L, a low-grade sample obtained from its last drilling campaign were also shown to be ‘excellent.’
Results showed the potential for implementing an X-Ray Transmission process at Toral based on findings from Bara's independent report with samples currently being processed.
Shares in Europa Metals have recovered from lows of 4.21p in July this year to open at and open at 15.5p following the test results.
Ore sorting by XRT is an established process for sorting lead/zinc ores by way of rejecting waste dilution from ores at a lower cost prior to more conventional processing by flotation.
If successful, ore sorting could provide several benefits for the Toral project such as reducing the size of the requisite process plant while maintaining the same throughput and allow higher mining rates without having to increase the size of the processing plant.
CEO, Laurence Read said the results and analysis showed excellent lead, zinc and silver recovery and grades for the Toral Project as well as certain economic benefits that could result from the implementation of ore sorting during potential future mining activities.
“It is of particular note that 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,” said Read, adding that the group was “extremely pleased” with the results.
Myles Campion, Executive Chairman of Europa Metals said the latest set of metallurgical results “indicate the potential to exploit further the resource at Toral,” noting that the use of XRT would mean increasing 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 EUZ is continuing to demonstrate that Toral can provide a high-grade concentrate, whilst allowing for a flexible mining approach,” he said.
Europa is currently 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, to determine the prospective economics for the Toral Project.
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