Categories:
Precious Metals
Topics:
General Precious Metals
Avrupa Minerals (TSX-V: AVU)(OTC: AVPMF) CEO Paul Kuhn on Gold-Silver-Copper-Zinc Exposure on Multiple Projects in Multiple Safe Mining Jurisdictions Across Europe
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Avrupa Minerals — Mr. Paul Kuhn. Paul, how are you today?
Paul Kuhn: Hey, Gerardo, I'm doing okay. It's a bit late where I am in Portugal but I'm looking forward to telling you about all the good stuff we're doing.
Gerardo Del Real: Listen, I appreciate the time and I'm looking forward to this update because I know that when we first talked about the projects in Finland, there wasn't a lot of on-the-ground — at least firsthand from your take — due diligence that had been done, although, there was a lot of due diligence that went into selecting the projects.
And now, we're finally starting to get some real results. You got some sampling results from a project, a VMS target in Finland, and I wanted for you to provide an update. Before we get into that, I want to talk a bit about what we chatted about off air, which was the recent share price action. And so look… let's be absolutely clear… it's summertime… it's summer doldrums… people are outside.
And me, personally, as a shareholder — a biased shareholder who happily wrote a check at C$0.08 — I don't get concerned whether the stock is at C$0.04 or C$0.05 or if it's at C$0.20 because, frankly, the reason that I wrote the check was to see these multiple projects, see quality exploration, to make some discoveries of significance that aren't going to lead to an C$0.08 or a C$0.10 or a C$0.20 share price.
I'm looking for a lot more than that. And the type of work that you just announced is the type of work that allows for that. So let's get to that. What did you find in Finland?
Paul Kuhn: Well, Gerardo, this is the fun stuff. Yeah, the stock price stinks, and, yeah, I want to see it going… but we're putting out good news here. We're doing good work. The group we're working with in Finland is the Geological Survey. They're quite familiar with the project area that we have claimed.
In fact, they have suggested some of the areas to us through my new partner at Akkerman Finland — Jan Akkerman. But at any rate, the news release talks about logging of historic drill core and sampling and getting some good zinc results and putting together the geology and the geophysics and the geochemistry to define some drill targets.
We can't drill now. We don't have the license yet. The process of the license application is in progress. It takes a while in Finland. It's pretty straightforward. There's some hoops we have to jump through. But we've already started our own process independent of the government.
Results showed we have a massive sulfide system. It's zinc-rich. Where we are now and where we think we are in the system — and that's out at the edges. As we get closer to finding the center portions and the real massive sulfide, we hope we'll get into the copper zone or copper-zinc zone anyway.
The report was good stuff. We're doing solid geology. We're finding answers to our questions about where to drill. We've got three or four targets on the Kolima project, and I'm just looking forward to getting out there and actually spotting them later in the summer or early-fall.
Gerardo Del Real: The second half of the year is the reason that I invested in Avrupa. It's a very, very important half of the year for the company. It's where a lot of the work that you've done in the field, and continue to do, is really going to — hopefully, fingers crossed — bear fruit. Can you walk us through, briefly, what the second half of the year holds for shareholders like myself?
Paul Kuhn: Well, like I've been saying about Finland, we're doing the base work now. The results for the next project will start coming out in July. We'll have another application to put in, hopefully, in the next two weeks.
We had some signals crossed with our consultant the last two weeks but now we're back and making progress on the application. That's the Kangasjärvi project. After that, we have another one called Halapara which I don't have much data on yet. But that will come in July as well.
And then, we're going to start thinking about drilling again in Portugal. My partner has given me some notice about starting again in September/October. It depends on the new owner of the company of our partner on getting a loan covenant settled. And they figure it'll take a couple more months.
But drilling back on Aguadi in the fall. I'm working in Kosovo to get a partner for our Slivovo gold prospect. So there should be quite a bit of news in the next six months. Basically, I have to get off my butt and keep moving too. So some people are out on holiday but I'm working here in Portugal right now to keep things going.
Gerardo Del Real: Gold exposure, copper exposure, zinc exposure, silver exposure… multiple very stable jurisdictions, multiple exploration programs. It's a lot to like for a company that has a market cap of… where are you today, Paul?
Paul Kuhn: I'm not even going to guess on that one, Gerardo! It's not too high. Let's put it that way.
Gerardo Del Real: Look, and just to be absolutely clear, the market cap is sub-C$2 million right now. You want to remind people how much you have in the treasury just to provide some context?
Paul Kuhn: Well, I've got a hundred thousand euros in Portugal, and we've got C$200,000 or C$300,000 in Canada. Our project in Portugal is fully-funded. We have already fully-funded the Finnish work for this summer. So the burn rate is pretty slow right now.
It's just a little bit for me and a little bit for the Vancouver office. So… how should I say it… we're sorry that the market is difficult right now but we're doing something about it. We're making progress.
Gerardo Del Real: Fully-funded exploration; multiple catalysts in the second half. I'm excited for it! I'll let you get back to it. I want to thank you for your time. I know it's late there, Paul. Thank you.
Paul Kuhn: Gerardo, thanks. I appreciate you calling me up on this. We'll look forward to talking to you again and getting some new news out in the next few weeks.
Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon, Paul.
Paul Kuhn: Alright, catch you later. Bye-bye. Thank you.