Lead, zinc and silver developer Europa Metals is starting a further diamond drilling campaign at its Toral zinc, lead, silver project, in Spain, focusing on a target area to the west of the current indicated resource within the existing inferred zone.

The drilling programme, along with geotechnical and hydrogeological work programmes have been instigated following an extensive review of the project, incorporating the recent Joint Ore Reserve Committee-compliant resource update, which provided a first indicated mineral resource estimate.

The overall objective of the drill programme would be to increase confidence levels in the resource within the central, proposed future mining area of the Toral project.

The geotechnical programme would seek to ascertain the subsurface conditions of the defined resource area in order to advance the mine design work and associated sequencing.

The hydrogeological programme has started with piezometers being inserted into historic drill holes, which would be used to begin the assessment of water conditions within the defined resource area.

Following completion of the preliminary geotechnical and hydrogeological work, geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling would start in the first quarter of next year, Aim- and AltX-listed Europa reported.

“Whilst we look forward to the results from such further drilling campaign, the geotechnical and hydrogeological work programme, combined with the forthcoming metallurgical results, are both fundamental next steps for de-risking the mine development pathway for the Toral project.

“In a modern day mining context, accurate assessment of hydrogeological issues are crucial from the standpoint of both best practice sustainability and operational viability.

"The metallurgical testwork is progressing well and once completed, and the results analysed, we shall use the findings to begin optimising what we believe to be a low capex project with potentially highly attractive operating margins and a significant silver component,” said executive director Laurence Read.

Toral has an indicated resource of about 2.7-million tonnes at 8.9% zinc-equivalent.