Drilling to Commence at Pitfield Project

Empire Metals Limited

13 September 2023

 

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

13 September 2023

Empire Metals Limited

('Empire' or the 'Company')

Drilling to Commence at Pitfield:

Focusing on the Scale and Structure of the Giant Titanium-Enriched Mineral System

Empire Metals Limited (LON: EEE), the AIM-quoted resource exploration and development company, is pleased to announce that the first phase of the Company's next major exploration campaign at the Pitfield Project in Western Australia ('Pitfield' or the 'Project') is scheduled to commence next week, with a total of 1,500 metres of Diamond Core drilling planned over the coming weeks.

Highlights

·    Major exploration campaign launched to confirm the scale of this giant, titanium-enriched mineral system and to provide more information about key parameters such as mineralogy, grades, tonnage potential and geological controls on the thicker, higher-grade mineralisation.

·    The drilling programme will consist of three angled, 500m deep, diamond core drill holes focused on confirming the continuation of the high-grade titanium mineralisation discovered during the Company's maiden drill campaign.

·    Particular focus on the large, very dense core mapped by airborne gravity survey which is believed to be indicative of the thicker and higher-grade parts of this extensively altered, giant titanium-rich mineral system which extends over 40km x 8km.

·    The highest density areas identified by the airborne gravity survey are outside areas tested in the maiden drilling campaign, which consisted of 21 Reverse Circulation (RC) holes totalling 3,206 metres.

·    The next phase of RC drilling, scheduled for Q4 2023, will involve a much larger programme along the length of the high-density gravity core within the regional magnetics anomaly.

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: "I am delighted to announce we are in the final stages of mobilising our drilling contractor, in readiness to commence drilling next week the first of the three diamond core holes we have planned for Pitfield. The diamond core drilling is the first phase of a major exploration push aimed at understanding the grade, mineralogy, thickness and extent of this extensively altered, giant titanium-rich mineral system.

"The diamond core holes are focussed in areas of known titanium enriched mineralisation, based on the results of our maiden RC drill campaign, and the information we will gain from these three, 500m deep, drill cores will be invaluable in terms of increasing our understanding of the thickness and geological controls on the titanium mineralisation, as well as providing a greater insight into the nature of the titanium minerals and their metallurgical characteristics."

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 the 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).

The results of the recent airborne gravity survey have highlighted a high-density, central core, which is a regional-scale feature, covering an area ~30km in length and up to 6km wide. The gravity data matches the airborne magnetics flown by Empire whereby the more magnetic rocks are also located within the same central core.

Planned Diamond Core Drilling Programme

The maiden, reconnaissance 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. This has now been shown to be associated with stratabound iron and titanium oxide mineralisation hosted within hydrothermally altered sandstone-siltstone and conglomerate beds. None of these holes was drilled into any of the discrete high-density anomalies identified from the recent detailed airborne gravity survey (Figure 2).

Figure 2.  Grey-scale magnetics map overlain by airborne gravity survey results with indicative highest density zones (solid yellow outlines) and locations of planned diamond core drill holes and maiden RC drill holes/IP survey lines.

The extensive, high grade titanium mineralisation (between 4% and 10% TiO₂), identified in all but one of 21 RC holes previously drilled, has provided Empire with a globally significant, world class exploration target that requires diamond core drilling to fully assess its economic potential. The three diamond core drill holes have been strategically positioned to provide maximum coverage across the 30km length of the high-density, central core of the magnetics anomaly (refer Figure 2).

Future Work

The gravity data shows a distinct linear gravity high of at least 15km in length, associated with the very dense rocks, flanking the eastern margin of the regional gravity anomaly but largely corresponding to rocks of lower magnetic susceptibility. This is an unexpected outcome which potentially highlights new zones of concentrated titanium mineralisation. A separate strong but discrete gravity high also occurs towards the northern end of the regional gravity core feature. These two gravity highs infer subsurface rock densities up to four times greater than the surrounding rocks. At the south-western end of the regional gravity core lies an additional distinct gravity high that infers rock densities of up to three times that of surrounding rocks.  These very dense zones may be represented by extensive concentrated Fe-Ti oxide mineralised beds.

The next drill programme, scheduled for late 2023, will involve a significant RC drilling campaign, which will be carried out along the length of the high-density gravity core and, in particular, focusing on the very dense zones that have now been identified within the magnetics anomaly. The objective of this drill programme is to not only confirm the scale of this giant, titanium-enriched mineral system but 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.

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