Avrupa Minerals Finding More Copper And Zinc At Alvalade Project, Portugal
(PresseBox) - It has been a long wait before Avrupa Minerals (TSXV: AVU) was able to report new drill results at its Sesmarias 8 Lens target at the flagship copper-zinc Alvalade project in Portugal, operated by Avrupa and MATSA in a JV, but it finally did so at June 9, 2021. As the geology of the 8 Lens is complex, management is drilling several fences (rows of drill holes across perceived mineralized zones) in order to map geologic structures, before stepping out much further. The latest intercepts were decent although not very economic, with, for example, hole SES21-033 with 22.25m (at) 0.42% copper from 363m, and SES21-036 with 17m (at)0.39% copper from 406m, both with significant zinc and lead credits. As the aim of management (and MATSA) is at least 1% copper, the search goes on, and in this update I discuss the latest drill results and other things with President and CEO Paul Kuhn.
All presented tables are my own material, unless stated otherwise.
All pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.
All currencies are in US Dollars, unless stated otherwise.
Avrupa Minerals and MATSA are trying to track down a pretty complex and intensely folded potential mineral deposit, as can be seen here in this conceptual section A-B, drawn after the latest results came in.
As can be seen, folded structures like this can only be described properly by strings of closely spaced drill holes, mapping stratigraphy and mineralization in a detailed fashion. Since mineralization could be located at significant depth in this case, deep drilling is also necessary. Keep in mind the nearby historic Lousal Mine which mined 20Mt and is estimated to contain another 30Mt of ore, has a similar mineralized envelope consisting predominantly out of black shales and massive sulphides, and this is exactly what Avrupa and MATSA are looking for at Sesmarias. For more understanding, here is a slightly enlarged version of the map containing this section.
At this time, 3,580m of diamond drilling has been completed, consisting of 7 holes on three sections (050N, 000 and 070S). The individual results will be discussed later on in this article. As a reminder, hole SES008 was the discovery hole in this area with 5m (at) 0.64% Cu, 36.8 g/t Ag, 0.94% Pb, and 1.54% Zn.
?Drilling in SES028, in 2018-19, intercepted a long interval of stockwork mineralization interpreted to lie geologically below potential massive sulfide mineralization.
So despite the absence of economic mineralization, management felt it got sufficient clues to proceed with unraveling the Sesmarias puzzle, and recently commenced drilling of hole SES21-038, located more to the southeast following the 070 S fence, in order to test strike mineralized potential to the south.
When we take a look at the results of SES21-34 and SES21-35, drilled at section 050 N in order to test the northern strike potential, nothing but anomalous levels were hit unfortunately. According to management, not all is lost:
?However, geological complications caused by faulting and folding of the target units appear, for all practical appearances, to have transposed the massive sulfide targets somewhat to the east.nic, suggesting close proximity to a potential massive sulfide zone.?
And:
?SES21-035 stockwork intercept results are strongly anomalous and suggest potential for nearby massive sulfide mineralization.ralization.?
This implies that faulting sub-parallel to the current fence directions (050 N, 000, 070 S) potentially displaced mineralized zones to the northeast.
?At this point, potential mineralization southeast of Section 000 looks to be following a predictable strike.quite apparent that the strike of the mineralization is NW-SE, and in this area variably dipping to the NE.?
The best two holes of the latest batch were SES21-033 and SES21-036:
SES21-033: 22.25 meters (at) 0.42% Copper, 2.07% Zinc; 1.05% Lead; 0.58 ppm Gold, and 39.3 ppm Silver in semi-massive to massive sulfide mineralization from 363.00 meters to 385.25 meters, with total amount of sulfides generally increasing with depth, and is terminated by the lower fault
SES21-036: 17.00 meters (at) 0.39% Copper; 2.11% Zinc; 1.10% Lead; 0.4 ppm Gold; and 34.1 ppm Silver in semi-massive to massive sulfide mineralization from 406.10 meters to 423.20 meters, within a wider zone of sulfide mineralization starting at 341 meters depth.
Since the mineralization is defined by faults in the sub-vertical direction, I wondered if these fault planes were (sub-)horizontally oriented or (sub-)vertical, and if this has consequences for geological conceptualization and drill targeting. CEO Kuhn thinks that the folding and faulting is highly complex.ports a similar geological interpretation in the SES002 area and the SES010 area.
Please note that these grades still don?t represent economic mineralization, although the calculated CuEq grade comes in at around 2%.
Avrupa and MATSA are fully aware of this, and Kuhn told me they are clearly looking for average 1% Cu grades in order to make this work. He and MATSA also had no interest in ?window dressing? (as he called it) the low copper grades via the byproducts by mentioning CuEq grades. I must say with such credits and resulting CuEq it wouldn?t be uncommon to mention equivalents instead, but as they are predominantly looking for copper, and zinc grades would outscore copper metal values, this is probably the most appropriate thing to do.
?Geological and geochemical results from drilling along Section 000 suggest a downdip projection of about 150 meters of massive sulfides on this section, up to 20 meters thick, and lying within a wider package of lower grade stockwork/replacement sulfide mineralization.
As discussed in my last update, the company is also defining exploration targets to the north of the 8 Lens in the Brejo area.realized that they were just beginning to figure out the structural complications at the 8 Lens, so they elected to follow the known (or at least partially known) geology and potential mineralization first. He had this to add about the complex geology around hole 008:
?Hole 008 hit a sulfidic zone about 20-30 meters thick, including about 5 meters of massive sulfide at the end, cut off by a fault as you know.
The company is also re-mapping the Monte da Bela Vista target area and is in the midst of a 375-sample, grid soil collection program in order to define further drill targets.
Another subject discussed in the earlier update, was the completion of the VTEM survey, slated for mid-March, so I wondered what the status was. Kuhn replied that the survey was completed and the results returned in April, but he didn?t know if it was appropriate for a separate news release.
Something that has had my interest for a long time is the Lousal Mine, and its assumed remaining historic 30Mt resource. In the last update the company disclosed that it was a high priority besides the drill program, and it was mapping geological structures which were visible in the old mine workings, and would finish compiling the old data in a few months. We are passed that point now, so again I turned to CEO Kuhn and asked for an update.
As a reminder: initial work there clearly shows similarity of ore control characteristics to what is known now about the Sesmarias massive sulfide mineralization.ly extracted from Lousal. For me this is the low hanging fruit of Alvalade, and I was very curious about the current status. CEO Kuhn stated the following:
?With all the other work going on, including mapping, sampling, VTEM anomaly follow-up, re-logging of historic drill core, land access permitting work, environmental and social baseline studies, and nearly 4,000 meters of drilling, we just haven?t had the time and staffing to push the Lousal research.(more or less) sure that we are targeting rock and not old holes!
Completion of all this work will give us a better answer for Lousal and MBV.
After this, Kuhn added he was actively looking into other projects as well. I was a bit surprised by this, as Alvalade with Lousal as a base with a historic resource and MATSA as a JV partner is everything a small prospect generator like Avrupa could wish for. Other projects would cost precious cash and resources, as it already seems Avrupa staff is spread out over all Alvalade work, and new projects would inherently have exploration risk, starting from zero all over again. If Avrupa could get Lousal and Sesmarias to a combined 50Mt (at)1% Cu and some nice by products to go with that, at current metal prices we would be looking at a US$500-700M NPV project for the JV. In my view it is impossible for Avrupa to find a better project at an acquisition price under C$7-10M, not even talking about the 100-150% dilution which would be necessary.
So I wondered why MATSA isn?t throwing more money at Alvalade, and for example start doing serious work on Lousal and use 3-4 drill rigs combined on Lousal and Sesmarias. Regarding drilling around underground workings I referred to another client of mine, Meridian Mining, who is doing exactly this at their Caba
?Rigs are very difficult to find, and experienced drillers even more difficult! MATSA has two rigs going on their projects in Spain.
Let?s see what MATSA will allow to be budgeted into Alvalade. The metal prices surely aren?t any objection, as copper recently went to all time highs and is still hovering at US$4.50/lb, and zinc isn?t exactly bad either at US$1.37/lb.
One last subject I wanted to touch upon is their intention to do a financing soon, as several funds already expressed their interest back in Q1, 2021, and the roll back has been a while now, with the share price again under 10c. CEO Kuhn had this to say about it:
It will be obvious how important good drill results will be for Avrupa Minerals, despite the MATSA JV which has fully funded exploration work for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
Avrupa Minerals is still in the process of chasing economic mineralization at Sesmarias, and from the looks of the latest drill results and the provided insights by management it seems they are getting closer and closer. I can?t say I fully understand the decision of MATSA not to pursue the historic Lousal resource much more forcefully, but as they are budgeting this campaign, Avrupa can only wait patiently for their plans. In the meantime, Avrupa is looking to acquire or option new projects, and maybe this will provide the company with interesting opportunities. For now, ongoing drilling could finally provide the company with economic intercepts, which could incentivize MATSA to speed things up.
I hope you will find this article interesting and useful, and will have further interest in my upcoming articles on mining. To never miss a thing, please subscribe to my free newsletter on my website www.criticalinvestor.eu, in order to get an email notice of my new articles soon after they are published.
Disclaimer:
The author is not a registered investment advisor, and currently has a long position in this stock. Avrupa Minerals is a sponsoring company. All facts are to be checked by the reader. For more information go to www.avrupaminerals.com and read the company?s profile andors prior to making any investment decisions.
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Datum: 14.06.2021 - 08:29 Uhr
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