LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Europe-focussed lead-zinc and silver developer Europa Metals announced changes to its board of directors on Wednesday, with Colin Bird resigning as non-executive chairman, with immediate effect.
The AIM-traded firm said that as a result, Myles Campion had been appointed executive chairman, having previously been executive and technical director, and Laurence Read had been appointed as chief executive officer, both taking effect immediately.

All other board positions remained unchanged, the directors said, and it was envisaged that a new non-executive director would be sought in due course.

Its core team working on the Toral Project remained unchanged, overseen by Europa Iberia chief operating officer Jesus Montero.

The company said the board restructure was coming at a time when Europa was moving forward with the next stage of work at the wholly-owned Toral lead, zinc and silver project, in the Castilla y León region of north west Spain.

Work undertaken by the group to date, in the board's view, demonstrated the "potential value and robust economics" of the project, the board claimed.

It said it was currently focused on increasing its understanding of Toral, with a number of workstreams ongoing, including a new, third phase metallurgical study being conducted by Wardell Armstrong International, and an ore sorting analysis programme conducted by Bara Consulting.

A product marketing and sales initiative was also underway, as was an EU grant application for project funding, as the company awaited an investigation permit decision by the Junta of Castilla y León, for a further three years.

Given the progress being made, the board said it believed it was an appropriate time to commission an independent JORC 2012 resource update, to be conducted by Addison Mining Services.

The updated resource would include the high grade drilling results from the 2019 programme that included the TOD-025 drill hole.

Europa said its main objective was to bring together the results of the ongoing work streams with data generated from previous work, which it had completed since the 2018 scoping study, in order to establish the preliminary economic parameters of an eventual pre-feasibility study.

Bara Consulting had been engaged to conduct that proposed workstream, and would work alongside Addison once the study begins in due course.

The company said it believed that a pre-feasibility study would enhance the economics of Toral, leveraging the "significant" amount of work, and positive results generated over the last two-and-a-half years.

In addition, Europa Metals would undertake to demonstrate the potential for Toral as a high-grade, wholly supply chain transparent source of lead-silver and zinc concentrate for sale to the market.

"The Toral Project is now emerging out of the exploration phase into the feasibility stage," said chief executive officer Laurence Read.

"The board believes Toral should be a first-rate source of concentrate that, with high grades and recovery, can be developed through the outlay of relatively low capital expenditure."

New executive chairman Myles Campion added that the work of the team in Spain had enabled the project to move forward over the last six months, despite the restrictions of the current Covid-19 pandemic and "strict adherence" to health and safety practices.

"The studies we have completed over the preceding 12 months can now be integrated into a new economic plan."

At 0923 BST, shares in Europa Metals were down 4.67% at 14.3p.

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