Airborne Gravity Survey Completed at Pitfield

Empire Metals Limited

02 August 2023

 

Empire Metals Limited / LON: EEE / Sector: Natural Resources

2 August 2023

Empire Metals Limited

("Empire" or "the Company")

Airborne Gravity Survey Completed at Pitfield

Empire Metals Limited (LON: EEE), the AIM-quoted resource exploration and development company, is pleased to announce that an Airborne Gravity Survey has recently been flown at the Pitfield Project ('Pitfield' or the "Project"), located in the premier mining jurisdiction of Western Australia.

Highlights

·    Airborne gravity data will help build a robust, detailed geological model of the Yandanooka Basin, host to the previously announced massive titanium discovery and coincident with the 40km long magnetics anomaly that has been correlated to the extensively altered and mineralised sedimentary beds.

·    Discrete high-density bodies of rock such as thick iron-titanium mineralised beds or large zones of hematitic iron oxides typically associated with copper mineralisation can be directly detected by this type of survey.

·    Initial petrographic studies confirmed the presence of ilmenite, a highly valued source for titanium oxide ('TiO₂') and which accounts for over 85% of the feedstock for the entire titanium industry.

·    The gravity data will be used in conjunction with all other exploration data sets towards defining priority drill targets across the entire length of the magnetics anomaly.

·    The fully funded next drill programme, including both diamond core and additional RC drilling, will be carried out to confirm the scale of this giant, titanium-enriched mineral system and also provide more information about key parameters such as mineralogy, grades, tonnage potential and geological controls on the thicker, higher-grade mineralisation.

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: "We are making good headway in understanding the size and scale of this globally significant titanium discovery.  The main objective of the gravity survey is to map variations in the subsurface rock density at Pitfield across the 40km by 8km magnetics anomaly at a high resolution that will assist in drill target selection, with priority given to identifying and testing the thicker and higher-grade parts of this giant titanium-rich mineral system. The iron-titanium oxide mineralisation already encountered at Pitfield has a higher density than the surrounding unaltered sediments and should stand out well in the survey."

The Pitfield Project

Empire holds a 70% interest in Pitfield which is comprised of four granted Exploration Licences (E70/5465, E70/5876, E70/6320 and E70/6323) covering 1,042km². Pitfield is located near Three Springs, a town 313km north of Perth, Western Australia on the Midlands Road, which until the opening of the Brand Highway in 1975 was the main road route from Perth to the state's north (refer Figure 1).

Figure 1.              Pitfield Project Location showing the scale of the

magnetics anomaly and coincident alteration footprint.

Regional gravity and magnetics surveys, carried out historically by the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA), identified strong, extensive and coincident gravity and magnetics anomalies within the Yandanooka Basin but lacked detail due to wide line spacing of these historical surveys. The more detailed airborne magnetics (AM) and airborne electromagnetics (AEM) surveys undertaken by Empire (announced 21 September 2022) confirmed a field-mapped massive alteration footprint within the host sedimentary rocks that was coincident with the historical gravity anomaly and the new, detailed magnetic and electromagnetic anomalies extending over a 40km north-south distance (Figure 1).  These new surveys also provided more internal detail of this massive geophysical anomaly that is required for more accurate drill target selection.

The maiden, reconnaissance Reverse Circulation ('RC') drilling campaign (announced 30 May 2023) was focused on areas where Empire had previously identified highly chargeable-highly resistive anomalies from Induced Polarisation (IP) ground surveys, which have now been shown to be associated with stratabound iron and titanium oxide mineralisation hosted within hydrothermally altered sandstone-siltstone beds.

Airborne Gravity Survey

XCalibur Multiphysics Group ('Xcaliber') was contracted by Empire to conduct a Falcon fixed-wing airborne gravity gradiometer (AGG) survey at Pitfield, which was flown between 17 and 21 July. The survey was flown over the entire magnetics anomaly and consisted of 1,749 line-km at a spacing of 325m (Figure 2).

Figure 2.              Local geological map showing AGG survey area flown.

Falcon is a low-noise, high sensitivity airborne system which is ideally suited for rapid and accurate acquisition of gravity data that is related to underlying rock densities. This type of survey measures gravity tensors which are used to derive the vertical gravity gradient. The Falcon AGG system employs two independent horizontally-aligned accelerometers to measure variations in the Earth's gravitational field (Figure 3).

Figure 3.              XCalibur's Falcon fixed-wing AGG system.

The airborne gravity data will aid exploration efforts by better defining the geological anatomy of the Yandanooka Basin even in areas lacking surface rock exposures due to transported cover, and, most importantly, the place of titanium, and potentially also copper mineralisation and their controls. A more detailed geological understanding of this giant mineral system will allow Empire to better target the more intensely mineralised part of the system with the overall objective of quickening the pace of project development.

The data generated by the AGG survey will be complementary to the existing magnetic and electromagnetic data over the same area as it is measuring variations in rock density, a different but equally fundamental physical property of rocks. Detailed gravity surveying can also be used as a direct detection tool for identifying discrete high-density zones of significant mineralisation, such as thick iron-titanium oxide-rich mineralised beds or large zones of hematitic iron oxides often associated with copper mineralisation.

Future Work

The maiden drill campaign consisted of only 21 RC drill holes totalling 3,206 metres, with the first 18 holes focused near the old Mt Scratch workings to the north and the final three holes spread evenly across a 30km distance to the south. The next fully funded drill programme, including both diamond core and additional RC drilling, will be carried out along the entire length of the magnetics anomaly to confirm the scale of this giant, titanium-enriched mineral system and to also understand the distribution of key factors better, such as grade, mineralogy, thickness and extent of mineralised beds and controls on high-grade TiO₂ mineralisation.

TiO₂ Industry and Market Demand

Titanium minerals are highly valued as a source for titanium oxide ("TiO₂"), a high growth commodity used primarily as an input into the process of the manufacture of pigments which are used in the production of paints, paper and plastics. Titanium as a metal alloy is known for its properties of low density (light weight), high strength and rust-resistance, making it a key component for the automotive industry with the rapid growth in demand for light weight, fuel efficient vehicles and for green energy generating technologies such as wind turbines.

Use in pigment manufacture accounts for approximately 90% of total global demand for titanium feedstocks. Titanium metal and welding flux cord wire jointly account for the remaining 10% demand.

TiO₂ is generally mined as ilmenite, typically either from hard rock deposits or from beach sand operations.  Titanium dioxide feedstocks are graded by their titanium dioxide content, which ranges from approximately 50% (sulphate ilmenite) to 95% (natural rutile).  These feedstocks are sold as either "unprocessed" (chloride or sulphate ilmenite) or as "processed" (sulphate or chloride slag) where the source material (ilmenite) has been upgraded to increase the concentration of TiO₂ in the feedstock.

A schematic of the titanium market is laid out in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4.           Titanium Market Products and Feedstocks.¹

Pigments are essential to the manufacture of a wide range of consumer products.  Pigments are found in products with high quality finishes, in plastics and paper and in foods and pharmaceuticals.  As disposable incomes have increased the demand for these consumer products has increased.

The global titanium market size has been estimated to be worth circa USD 26 billion in 2022 and is forecast to reach USD 36 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of 5.5% during the period of review.²

Titanium minerals are regarded as a "critical" resource and titanium is on the strategic "critical minerals list" in many countries including the United States, the European Union, Japan and Australia.

1.     Source Iluka Resources Ltd website

2.     Source www.marketwatch.com/press-release/titanium-market-insights-2030-2023-06-19

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, as incorporated into UK law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, until the release of this announcement.

**ENDS**

For further information please visit www.empiremetals.co.uk  or contact:

Empire Metals Ltd Shaun Bunn / Greg Kuenzel	Tel: [phone]
S. P. Angel Corporate Finance LLP (Nomad & Broker) Ewan Leggat / Adam Cowl	Tel: [phone]
Shard Capital Partners LLP (Joint Broker) Damon Heath	Tel: [phone]
St Brides Partners Ltd (Financial PR)                                          Susie Geliher / Ana Ribeiro	Tel: [phone]

About Empire Metals Limited

Empire Metals is an AIM-listed (LON: EEE) exploration and resource development company with a project portfolio comprising copper, titanium and gold interests in Australia and Austria.

The Company's strategy is to develop a pipeline of projects at different stages in the development curve. Its current focus is on the Pitfield Project in Western Australia, which has demonstrated to contain a newly recognized giant mineral system that hosts a globally significant titanium discovery.  The Company is also advancing the Eclipse-Gindalbie Project in Western Australia, which is prospective for high-grade gold and also kaolin used to produce high-purity alumina, an essential component in lithium-ion batteries.

The Company also has two further exploration projects in Australia; the Walton Project in Western Australia, and the Stavely Project in the Stavely Arc region of Victoria, in addition to three precious metals projects located in a historically high-grade gold producing region of Austria.

 

END