Fever for gold in northern Portugal The Portuguese Lusorecursos, immersed in the race for lithium, requests a license to operate a gold mine in Braga
Javier G. Helmet | Vigo 13.12.2017 | 13:51
Fever for gold in northern Portugal
The Portuguese districts closest to Galicia have the largest lithium reserves in Europe, but the latest prospects reveal that this mineral has its particular neighbor: gold. The local firm Lusorecursos accompanies its new investments with the call to create a cluster of mining to reinforce the country's power in this sector.
The boom of the electric car and the desperate search for lithium necessary for its batteries have shipped north to Portugal, which houses the largest reserves of this resource in the whole continent, to the fever for the so-called white gold , as this mineral is popularly known . However, the latest surveys in the north of the country reflect that its subsoil houses space for more treasures. Among them, zinc , wolfram and the most precious of metals, gold . The local firm Lusorecursos has just submitted an application to the Directorate General of Energy and Geology (DGEG) to obtain the license to operate a gold mine shared by the municipalities of Vila Verde, Ponte da Barca and Ponte de Lima , all of them in the district of Braga.
The initiative supposes to take a step more regarding the current situation. At the end of 2012, the company obtained a license to conduct preliminary surveys of gold, silver, zinc and tungsten to investigate the presence of these minerals in the area of 41 square kilometers for which it is now requesting the concession. Lusorecursos transfers its request after the research work has shown satisfactory results and that it ensures the profitability of its operations for the extraction of gold.
The "cluster of metals"
The new step taken by Lusorecursos strengthens northern Portugal as one of the hot spots of the Old Continent in attracting investors for the sector. The company itself goes further and details that "with the request for the gold exploration license, Lusorecursos also takes on the challenge of developing, together with the competent authorities, a work to build an authentic cluster of metals in Portugal."
In addition, through a statement, Lusorecursos demonstrates its patriotism and defends that the expansion plans that are reflected in this operation are the best way to defend the interests of Portugal. "Lusorecursos seeks to preserve the public interest, the natural resources of the country and contribute so that public policies lead to the added value of this resource remaining in Portugal and not being captured by companies that, in many cases, substitute the national interest for the speculative interest ".
It is a veiled reference to the dispute with the Australian Novo Lithium over the lithium deposits in Sepeda . Both companies have been in an open conflict since Novo Litio took the courts to Lusoresources last July for allegedly not having transferred their exploration license in this area despite having previously agreed to a binding contract. It specified that the initial payment of about 30,000 euros would be complemented by successive disbursements that could reach up to one million euros depending on the quality of the extracted mineral.
Waiting for the situation to be unblocked, Novo Litio announced on Monday through a relevant event to the Australian Stock Exchange regulator that "it will seek to develop other projects." And is that in addition to the land of Sepeda, located just 20 kilometers from the province of Ourense , the company acquired in September the license to carry out explorations on a land of 354 square kilometers, which makes it the main player of the sector in the north of the country.
The company highlights that in the coming months it will highlight new Portuguese sitesin which to carry out new lithium explorations. In this sense, the need to accumulate lithium volumes is especially relevant for the ambitious plans that the company makes in Portuguese territory. The CEO of Novo Lithio, David Frances, revealed earlier this year that the group planned an investment of 370 million euros to build a lithium carbonate battery factory, in a macro operation that was subject to obtaining "large quantities of the resource ".
Beyond Portugal, the company also announced that it will begin its drilling operations on Swedish soil (the Spodumenberget project) starting next quarter.
NLI Price at posting:
5.1¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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