Europa Metals Ltd (LON:EUZ) has commenced drilling at the Toral lead, zinc and silver project in the region of Castilla y León, north-west Spain.
This latest drilling campaign forms part of Europa’s pre-feasibility study.
The first phase of the drill programme will target areas above the 600-metre level, concentrating on increasing Europa Metals' understanding of the initial four years of potential future production at Toral and building on the results of the preliminary economic study announced in November 2020.
This latest work will include increasing resource delineation, undertaking further metallurgical testwork, and advancing geotechnical studies around areas of potential future mine development.
In addition, the current drill programme forms part of the Innovation Partnership with the University of Salamanca and SPI, which helped secure the grant award of €466,801 to the company from the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).
Data from the drilling campaign will be recovered and processed by the partnership in order to progress the development of a software package that can correct or reduce deviation within diamond drilling operations.
Drilling operations have commenced scheduling but, in light of the worldwide coronavirus health emergency and the need to prioritise the health and safety of employees and consultants, no specific commitments will be made at this time regarding the duration of ongoing and planned additional fieldwork.
"Today's drilling campaign will build on the operational work completed over the last two years that has seen significant advances in the potential production rate and overall estimated economics for Toral,” said chief executive Laurence Read in a statement.
“This initial phase will concentrate on the upper zone of Toral in order to focus on refining the planned design and economics for the early years of the project, which have become an attractive feature of the recent preliminary economic study as a result of a comparatively low level of capex, early mining and breakeven within four years."