A Scottish gold and silver mining business has abandoned prospecting in Portugal to accelerate its work on its mine near Tyndrum.
Scotgold has decided not to extend the Pomar Exploration Licence in Portugal and applied to the Director General of Energy and Geology to terminate the licence.
While the company said it continues to believe in the potential of the Pomar licence, its exploration results, including recent soils samples, suggest significant investment would be required to realise this potential.
The company's short term focus is now on the successful development of the Cononish Gold and Silver Mine, and the advancement of the encouraging exploration results in the vicinity of the Cononish Project, which is on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.
Richard Gray, chief executive officer of Scotgold, said: "Our belief in the potential of this licence and our positive experiences in Portugal made this a hard decision. Our critical focus at this time however has to be the development of the Cononish Project and securing positive cashflow in 2020.
"This will enable us to accelerate our exploration activities in Scotland and ultimately reconsider other opportunities in similar low political risk jurisdictions."
