The company said that the Mining Bureau has verified that the company’s subsidiary in Portugal has fulfilled all obligations for the EEL application

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Alvalade project is located in the Iberian Pyrite Belt of southern Portugal. (Credit: Avrupa Minerals Ltd)

Avrupa Minerals along with Spanish miner Minas de Aguas Teñidas, SA (MATSA) are set to begin work on Alvalade project upon receiving new Alvalade Experimental Exploitation License (EEL).

In November last year, Avrupa had signed an agreement with MATSA to form an earn-in exploration and exploitation joint venture for the project located in the Iberian Pyrite Belt of southern Portugal.

MATSA holds 1,000 km2 of exploration licenses in the Iberian Pyrite Belt. It a 50:50 joint venture company of Mubadala Investment Company and Trafigura, one of the world’s leading independent commodity trading and logistics houses.

Avrupa Minerals said that the Mining Bureau has verified that the company’s subsidiary in Portugal has fulfilled all obligations for the EEL application.

The collection of final social and technical due diligence data for the Alvalade license area is expected to be completed in the next 30 days.

Avrupa Minerals president and CEO Paul W. Kuhn said: “We are looking forward to the commencement of Alvalade JV work as soon as possible.

“The past year was difficult for Avrupa, but we stayed the course, upgraded the massive sulfide mineralization at Sesmarias early in 2019, and followed that by signing a Joint Venture with MATSA.

“We anticipate better conditions for 2020 and will aggressively move forward to re-stock our exploration pipeline with quality projects.”

Avrupa plans to re-start work in Kosovo

In this year, the company is also planning to continue its copper-zinc massive sulfide exploration in south Portugal, mostly in the Pyrite Belt around the Marateca and Mertola areas and near Ossa Morena Zone which also includes the Alvito iron-oxide copper-gold area.

Avrupa has plans to re-start work in Kosovo at its wholly-owned Metovit base metals exploration permit. The firm is seeking a permit from the Government of Kosovo for gold-silver-base metals area, which remained unavailable for exploration for more than 10 years.