Europe-Focused Polymetallic Explorer Gets Busy Drilling Again

May 18, 2023 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Multiple metals in considerable quantities are required for nations to meet green transition targets over the coming decades. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the EU market, where strict national and supra-national policies have long been a matter of regular practice.

As demand for a circular green economy grows, Europe's large manufacturing base will require an influx of raw metals, with copper, silver, and gold chief among them. Favorable amounts of all three of these elements in an EU candidate state were disclosed on May 8 by Terra Balcanica Resources Corp. (TERA:CSE; UB1:FSE).

Terra Balcanica is Canadian multi-metal exploration company with a history of targeting large-scale mineral systems in the Balkans. Through its fully controlled Bosnian and Serbian subsidiaries, the company operates five separate exploration licenses across the two countries totaling 350 square kilometers.

The firm's flagship operation is the Viogor-Zanik Project in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. This project surrounds Mineco Ltd.'s operating Sase mine - which produces 330,000 tons of zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), silver (Ag), tin (Sn), and gold (Au) concentrate - and comprises three mineral exploration licenses (Caus, Cumavici, and Olovine) that cover about 216 square kilometers and contain mineable amounts of copper, lead, zinc, gold, silver, antimony, and tin.

The company also owns the Kaludra exploration license in Serbia, which encompasses 50 square kilometers of silver, zinc, and lead-bearing deposits in the historic Rashka district.

The Catalyst: Additional Gold and Porphyry Drill Targets

Terra Balcanica's third project, Ceovishte, is also in the Rashka district of southern Serbia. The 80-square-kilometer land tenure was the subject of the May 8 announcement, which revealed that surface rock sampling there included concentrations as high as 53.5 grams per tonne (g/t) Au, 78.6 g/t Ag, and 2.47% copper (Cu), with up to 0.39% cobalt (Co) and 0.45% bismuth (Bi).

Apart from the high-grade gold target, additional fieldwork revealed an over 900 meters wide Au-Ag-As (arsenic)-Bi-Cu-Te (tellurium) anomaly in the soil geochemistry, with soil assays returning up to 2.42 g/t Au. The site was deemed drill-ready, with both porphyry and epithermal mineralization visible at collar locations.

Terra Balcanica chief executive officer, Dr. Aleksandar Mišković, P.Geo., explained that "detailed prospecting, rock chip, and soil sampling at our Serbian Ceovishte license not only confirmed the existence of a sizable hydrothermal system responsible for multi-ounce gold assays at surface near the Medjurečje locality but also defined a new, 900-meter-wide, topographically depressed, semi-circular gold-silver-copper soil anomaly northeast of the high-grade Au zone that is characterized by potassic altered andesites interpreting by Terra's technical team to represent a previously neglected porphyry target."

Dr. Mišković stated: "This confirms the potential of our Serbian assets and represents a significant diversification of the Company's polymetallic portfolio already defined by our Viogor Zanik project. It sets the stage for drilling of the shallow high-grade gold target later this year."

Why This Sector? High Demand for Green Tech Input Metals

As a polymetallic explorer at EU's doorstep, Terra Balcanica is strategically positioned to provide a variety of base metal resources (Brezani, Olovine, Kaludra) to markets across the European industrial spectrum and to do so with only a fraction of the transportation overhead offshore providers face. This extra margin room also applies to its precious metal portfolio (Ceovishte, Cumavici), and by straddling the two markets, further risk diversification is available.

"We're going to have a freakout as we try to change the world economy unless we develop a lot more mines," said mining financier Robert Friedland at a recent Investing in Africa Mining Indaba.

"The new giant windmills as tall as the Eiffel Tower - these are the next generation ones - they're 12 megawatts each. That's a lot of power per windmill. In the U.S., we will need 5.5 million tonnes of copper just in the next few years to put up these big General Electric windmills. Where is this copper going to come from?" he asked.

"Tesla expects a global battery minerals shortage," he said. "Maybe, therefore, Elon Musk was selling a few shares. He's blaming it on a Twitter poll; remember that. But perhaps he realizes there won't be enough metals around to satisfy these ambitious growths charts."

Terra's Appeal: (Post-)Discovery Value Lift Position

Terra Balcanica Resources Corp. has previously announced and already begun drilling its 3,000 meters, Phase II diamond core program, sequentially targeting multiple different prospects as follows:

• 1,200 meters at the Cumavici Ag-Zn-Pb-Au-Sb target for a Mineral Resource Estimate
• 1,000 meters at the Brezani Au skarn/porphyry target for preliminary target definition
• 800 meters at the Ceovishte Au target for preliminary target definition

In addition to aggressively advancing the Viogor-Zanik polymetallic project, the company plans to enter the regional south-eastern European battery metal exploration space in the next two months.

Why Now? Breakout From a Cup & Handle Base

On February 8, Analyst Clive Maund explored the deeper fundamentals of the stock, explaining that he would recommend Terra Balcanica "too early late in October due to the belief that it was at the lower rail of an uptrend channel, but it wasn't and went on to break down from it by moving sideways. Apart from wasted time, no lasting harm was done because the downside was limited with its strong volume indicators showing that it was under accumulation, and we are now up slightly on our purchase at that time."

"The price has been consolidating the breakout with the dip of recent days, which was largely due to the sector being hit, throwing up an opportunity to buy it at a good price with the benefit of knowing that it has already broken out from the base pattern," analyst Clive Maund said.

"On the latest 1-year chart," he explained, "it is now clear what was going on. The price drifted off in a gentle downtrend to form the Handle of a fine shallow Cup & Handle base pattern; this new interpretation is validated by the strong volume as it broke out upside from the pattern in the middle of last month."

Maund said the February breakout was "technically significant but hardly spectacular and would not have attracted much attention. Since it occurred, the price has been consolidating the breakout with the dip of recent days, which was largely due to the sector being hit, throwing up an opportunity to buy it at a good price with the benefit of knowing that it has already broken out from the base pattern."

Ownership and Share Structure

Terra Balcanica has 83,272,809 shares outstanding 413,350 warrants at CA$0.20 with an exercise date of June 15, 2025; 5,000,000 warrants at CA$0.15 with an exercise date of Dec. 17, 2025; and 4,760,586 warrants at CA$0.13 with an exercise date of May 8, 2026. Outstanding options include 5,570,000 at $CA 0.20, expiring June 16, 2027; and 250,000 at CA$0.10, expiring Oct. 12, 2024; for a fully diluted base of 99,266,745.

The company's estimated public float is circa 55%, and the two largest shareholders are Aleksandar Mišković (who holds 11.2%) and Aleksandar Ilic (who holds 10.8%), with the remainder of the control interest held by management, close associates, and directors. There are no institutional owners or strategic investors of record. Over 32 million shares are escrowed on a 36-month release schedule.

Terra currently has CA$200,000 in the bank, with a monthly burn rate of CA$35,000 and a drilling cost of CA$295 per meter.

The company is working with the IR firm Paradox IP from Montreal and the influencer thedeepdive.ca as well as miningscout.de.

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