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.

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.

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.

1. Introduction

As Avrupa Minerals (AVU.V) was experiencing delays in finalizing their option agreement on their Portuguese projects with a major copper producer, time was running out on one of their most important claims. A certain amount of exploration work had to be completed on their flagship project Alvalade by the end of 2018, so Avrupa decided to raise the necessary cash on their own, in order to initiate the intended drill program.