LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Resource explorer and developer Empire Metals announced a significant update on its recently-discovered titanium dioxide mineral deposit at the Pitfield Project in Western Australia on Thursday.
The AIM-traded company confirmed the presence of high-purity anatase within the weathered "saprolite" cap that extends over the 40 kilometre-long, titanium-rich mineral system at Pitfield.

It said the mineralogical assessment revealed that the weathered sandstones at Pitfield were rich in anatase, a variant of rutile, with up to 98.5% titanium dioxide content, making it significantly higher in titanium dioxide concentration - four to five times more - than typical mineral sand deposits.

The high-grade anatase represented a potentially-strategic feedstock for the titanium chloride pigment and titanium metal markets, as global rutile resources continued to decline.

Pitfield's anatase-rich ore stood out, the firm said, due to its low impurity levels and absence of deleterious elements such as radionuclides, niobium, chromium, and phosphorus, which are common in carbonatite-hosted titanium deposits found in countries like Brazil and China.

That, Empire explained, made the Pitfield deposit particularly suitable for producing high-value titanium dioxide pigments and titanium metal.

The company noted that the soft, friable sandstone bedrock at Pitfield contained easily-extractable anatase, which responded differently to the main gangue minerals kaolinite and quartz.

That could lead to simpler mineral separation and less intensive beneficiation processes, offering an excellent opportunity for producing high-quality titanium dioxide products.

Ongoing metallurgical testwork was focussed on gravity and froth flotation mineral separation techniques, with subsequent studies on acid leaching and product refining.

Empire Metals said it was now working towards confirming the process route, delineating a maiden mineral resource estimate, and defining potential end products.

"The discovery of a naturally occurring, concentrated zone of high-quality anatase within the extensive weathered cap provides an enormous opportunity for the company to accelerate its plans to become the next fully integrated 'mine to high-quality titanium dioxide product' project," said managing director Shaun Bunn.

"The anatase found at Pitfield has a very high titanium dioxide content and is free of deleterious impurities, making it a desirable feedstock for processing to titanium dioxide pigment.

"Anatase can be chlorinated to produce titanium tetrachloride under similar conditions required to process rutile, an important precursor to making titanium dioxide pigment and titanium metal."

Bunn said the discovery would have a "material and immediate" positive impact on the overall project economics.

"The strongly-weathered cap can be mined first and will be amenable to very low-cost strip mining methods due to its surficial position, broad extent and soft, friable nature due to weathering.

"The weathering has also converted the gangue silicate minerals to kaolinite and quartz, common minerals that can be simply separated with conventional techniques, providing a clear processing pathway for the recovery of a high-grade titanium dioxide mineral concentrate suitable for the production of titanium dioxide pigments and titanium metal."

At 1158 BST, shares in Empire Metals were up 2.86% at 8.28p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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