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A DFS on Adriatic’s Vares silver project in Bosnia is expected to be completed by April 2021

source and the mine plan,” he said. was the standout resources IPO from
“We still have a lot more work to do on 2018, a number of encouraging intercepts
the capex in terms of localisation of some were recently reported at Kizevak, part of
of the costs. We’ve identified a number of the Raska polymetallic project in Serbia,
areas where our procurement group is go- acquired from the takeover of TSX-listed
ing to be working at various trade fairs, etc Tethyan Resource Corp in May. Adriatic has expanded its footprint around
to identify local suppliers who can provide Best hits included 13m @ 5.8% zinc, the Rupice deposit
items such as tanks, piping, pumps and do 2.8% lead, 46 g/t silver and 0.2 g/t gold
maintenance contracts and those sorts of from 60m (including 4m @ 13.3% zinc, project,” Cronin said.
things.” 6.2% lead, 110 g/t silver and 0.3 g/t gold) “Our clear approach from the very be-
The Adriatic team is also quietly rubbing and 26m @ 3.5% zinc, 1.5% lead, 19 g/t ginning was to look for ex-Yugoslav as-
their hands together at the prospect of ex- silver and 0.2 g/t gold from surface (includ- sets where there had been some degree
ploring for repeats near Rupice after being ing 7m @ 8.6% zinc, 3.2% lead, 42 g/t sil- of historical exploration, where data was
granted a new mineral concession of 32sq ver and 0.2 g/t gold). available to be analysed, verified and then
km in early September. Preliminary metallurgical testing of expanded on. That strategy has been
“It’s significant because it’s the big- the Kizavek material also demonstrated successful at Vares and it has been suc-
gest mineral concession Bosnia has ever strong recoveries of zinc, lead and silver cessful so far at Raska in Serbia. We have
awarded,” Cronin said. “When you look at by flotation, with very low deleterious ele- identified other assets in the region we’d
the structural and the geochemical condi- ments and impurities. like to look at, but we’re certainly not limit-
tions that have given rise to the Rupice de- With Vares having a rapid payback of ing ourselves to the Balkans, although we
posit, which is quite a unique deposit, we just 1.2 years, Cronin indicated his com- are trying to keep a focus on a Europe.”
haven’t seen one like it anywhere else in pany would look to push early cash flow Adriatic also continues to make inroads
the world. That new land package allows from operations in Bosnia across the bor- on the regulatory front and remains on
us to go and find those conditions and look der to Serbia as soon as possible. track to meet key requirements for the op-
for those repeats, and we’re all reasonably “I’m pretty confident already based on eration and mine use permits in 2021.
certain it will repeat.” metallurgical work we’ve done and the
In a further boost for the company which drilling we’re doing that this is real mining – Michael Washbourne

Black Dragon Gold Corp is on the cusp of appointing “Spain was dead for almost six months, almost nothing happened,
a new chief executive to lead the company’s activities but in the last two months we’ve seen a huge amount of interaction
in Spain post one of the world’s lengthiest COVID-19 with government and everything is moving in the right direction
lockdowns. very quickly,” Cronin said.
Until recently, Spain had essentially been in a complete lockdown “I was only there as a caretaker, I’ve kept Black Dragon moving
since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, meaning com- in the right direction for as little cash burn as possible without
panies such as Black Dragon have effectively been unable to seeing any wastage, but you’ll see some changes coming through
conduct any business. there soon because the project and the company is now getting
to the point where it’s ready to expand and it’s now got to have a
Black Dragon’s main and immediate focus is preparing the dedicated CEO.
environmental impact assessment for its Salave gold project in
the country’s north-west. Paul Cronin has been overseeing those “We’ll be bringing in a guy who I trust to run that company, who can
activities in his capacity as executive director, but scaled back his manage both the exploration and development side of things and
full-time responsibilities at the company more than a year ago to someone who is very familiar with the project. There will be quite a
focus on his role at the helm of Adriatic Metals plc. lot of news flow coming out between now and Christmas on Black
Dragon.”
However, Cronin expects to soon be passing the baton on to a new
chief who will manage all facets of the business in Spain.

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