Mineral & Financial Investment Limited (LON:MAFL) shares rose on Wednesday as the firm said total resources for the Lagoa Salgada's polymetallic deposits in Portugal have more than doubled to 20.7mln tonnes, up from the 10.0mln tonnes reported in August 2018, with overall grades being maintained.
In an update on the exploration programme, the AIM-listed firm said that Lagoa Salgada's North Zone had its first measured mineral resource of 1.8mln tonnes at 11.02% zinc equivalent.
READ: Mineral and Financial Investment lauds “transformational results” from first full drill program on Lagoa Salgada
It pointed out that Lagoa Salgada's North Zone now has total measured & indicated mineral resource of 6.0mln tonnes at 9.4% zinc equivalent and inferred mineral resource of 7.8mln tonnes at 7.4% zinc equivalent, for a total resource of 13.8mln tonnes.
The group said the potential remains for further growth along the continuous 1.6 kilometre-long anomaly, and infill drilling provides indication that grade improves with confidence levels.
It noted that the ratio of meters of drilling per million tonnes of resource is high, making the project extremely encouraging and promising for future growth.
Jacques Vaillancourt, Mineral & Financial’s chairman commented: “The increase in scale of the resources represent a significant milestone for Lagoa and the directors believe this validates the initial investment at the lows of the Zinc cycle in 2015. We believe that exploration program was exceptionally well executed and exceeded our expectations by nearly doubling the tonnes in both deposits while concurrently improving the grade profile of the deposits."
He added: "The success of the exploration work in 2018, demonstrates the overall growth potential and scalability of the Project, which Redcorp and Ascendant plans to expand with further exploration work this year.”
In early afternoon trading, shares in Mineral & Financial were 7.9% higher at 10.25p.