Avrupa Minerals Ltd, the mining company that now holds 11 different licences throughout Portugal, started an “exciting” new phase of drilling at their Alvalade Project, on the Pyrite Belt of southern Portugal near Aljustrel last week.
Paul Kuhn, CEO and president, said: “We are quite pleased to start this new phase of drilling. It has taken us much of the past two years to get to this point where our understanding of the presumed subsurface geology actually allows us to drill through the thick cover and anticipate intercepting rocks that may be altered and even mineralised. The information we get from the basement rocks at the bottom of each of these six holes will lead us further into the right direction for targeting massive sulfide mineralisation. This is an exciting, yet risky, step forward in the evolution of the project”.
‘Massive sulfide mineralisation’ in layman’s terms equals pay-dirt – the copper, zinc and even gold deposits that companies like Avrupa exist for.
Describing itself as a growth-oriented junior exploration and development company focused on aggressive exploration for valuable mineral deposits in politically stable and prospective regions of Europe, Avrupa currently holds around 17 exploration licenses in Portugal, Kosovo, and Germany.
The list, however, is growing all the time, with the government in Portugal falling over itself to hand out new licences and pave the way forward to further exploration. Recently, it approved the amalgamation of a number of Avrupa’s licences for the area and extended their time-frames.
Paul Kuhn explained in a press release how the “granting of the licence amalgamation and extension of the validity of exploration rights by the Portuguese government” had paved the way for the company to secure funding for the latest drilling programme, the fourth phase.
The new licence covers four prospective mineral trends including the Neves Corvo belt, the Aljustrel belt, the São Domingos belt and the newly-emerging Santa Margarida da Serra belt.
Also ongoing is a general ‘dressing up’ of existing properties in the region in order to secure potential joint venture partnerships, he said.
New mineral deposits found in Algarve and Alentejo
Meantime, the national laboratory of energy and geology announced last week that new areas with copper, lead and nickel have been discovered in the Algarve and Alentejo, opening the doors to new investment.
Talking to Lusa news agency, the laboratory’s Teresa Ponce Leão said the new discoveries, the vast majority in the Alentejo region, would be publicised to potential investors and support existing extraction companies, like Avrupa, in “the planning of their campaigns”.
