After Avrupa Minerals (TSXV: AVU) commenced drilling last December at its Sesmarias target at the flagship copper-zinc Alvalade project in Portugal, which is operated together with JV partner MATSA (joined company of Trafigura and Mubadala, two commodity giants), the company completed two drill holes so far for 874m of drilling, part of the 7-8,000m program.

With a second wave of COVID-19 in full swing now across the globe, Avrupa Minerals (TSXV: AVU) has finally commenced drilling at its flagship copper-zinc Alvalade project in Portugal, which is operated together with JV partner MATSA (joined company of Trafigura and Mubadala, 2 commodity giants).

As Avrupa Minerals (AVU.V) finalized the Definitive Agreement with MATSA, a 50:50 joint venture company of Mubadala Investment Company, a pioneering global investor, and Trafigura, one of the world’s leading independent commodity trading and logistics houses, on November 20, 2019, exploration programs are being prepared now.

As 2020 keeps unfolding as one of the most remarkable years of the last decade with COVID-19 disrupting almost everything, resulting in unprecedented drops in economic activity and considerable volatility in the markets, and a second wave of the pandemic seems to be around the corner, the mining industry seems to be looking forward, on the back of a recovering economy, especially China returning back close to normal during the summer.

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The Critical Investor, an avid and critical mining stock investor and newsletter writer from Europe, looks for high quality companies, strong short-term catalysts and deep value. In this interview with Streetwise Reports, he takes a deep dive into the drivers behind gold's appreciation, discusses several criteria he uses to evaluate mining juniors and developers, and profiles, using his numbers-based approach, 13 junior mining companies, of which most are featuring in his portfolio.

As Golden Arrow Resources (GRG.V, GARWF.US, G6A.FSE) renegotiated their Indiana gold project in Chile not too long ago into very favorable terms, I was surprised to recently read about the company dropping the project:

“The Company also wishes to report that it is not proceeding with its option of the Indiana Gold-Copper project in Chile.”

As gold stocks are getting all the attention at the moment with gold firmly in an upward trend it seems, one could almost forget the existence of base metal juniors. This is not entirely justified in my opinion, as for example copper has recovered completely from its March lows, as can be seen in this chart per pound Cu by Macrotrends:

A tiny junior whose faith is closely intertwined with copper pricing is Avrupa Minerals (AVU:TSXV), as its flagship Alvalade brownfield copper-zinc project in Portugal is likely to contain significant amounts of the red metal.

Despite being a hybrid prospect generator, meaning self-funding projects and also being funded by JV partners, Avrupa Minerals (AVU:TSXV) (US OTC:AVPMF) (FRANKFURT:8AM) has been trying for a long time, and finally succeeded in signing a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) on October 1, 2019 for a nice JV deal over their Alvalade project in Portugal, with a Spanish private mining company called MATSA, owned in joint venturebetween juggernauts Mubadala and Trafigura.

1. Introduction

As a pure play uranium explorer since 2004, things looked increasingly grim after Fukushima happened in 2012 for Forum Uranium. After years of struggling, CEO Richard Mazur decided together with the board that they had to change course. On February 28, 2018 the company name was changed into Forum Energy Metals (FMC.V),

It took Avrupa Minerals (AVU.V) a few weeks longer than anticipated to release the first drill results of the Q4 2018 program on the Sesmarias project, part of their Alvalade license located in Portugal, as bringing good news right before PDAC usually generates healthy attention, but the numbers came out pretty interesting anyway in my view.