LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Empire Metals announced the completion of its largest drilling programme to date at the Pitfield titanium project in Western Australia on Tuesday, marking a key step toward delivering a maiden JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate (MRE) for what the company described as a globally significant deposit.
The AIM-traded firm said the campaign targeted the Thomas Prospect and included 180 holes - 140 air core (AC) holes totalling 6,360 metres, and 40 reverse circulation (RC) holes totalling 3,776 metres - bringing total metres drilled in this phase to 10,136.

Drilling was completed on a systematic 400 by 200 metre grid covering more than 1,350 hectares, designed to support both resource modelling and economic evaluation studies.

"We are very pleased to have completed this important drilling campaign on time, on budget and without safety incident," said managing director Shaun Bunn.

"With drilling now complete, our focus turns to resource modelling and progressing Pitfield towards its maiden mineral resource estimate, which is a key milestone as we look to bring this globally significant titanium project to commercialisation."

The company said the Thomas Prospect was selected for the initial MRE due to its thick, high-grade titanium mineralisation within a broad, in-situ weathered zone.

Drill samples - collected at two metre intervals and totalling more than 5,000 - had been submitted to Intertek's laboratory in Perth for geochemical analysis and assay.

Empire's total drilling across Pitfield now exceeded 32,000 metres across 382 holes, providing what the company described as a robust dataset for geological modelling and early-stage mine planning.

The programme was supported by resource consultants Snowden-Optiro.

Located 313 kilometres north of Perth and 156 kilometres from Geraldton, Empire said Pitfield benefitted from proximity to key infrastructure including rail, roads, high-voltage power, and natural gas pipelines.

The area also lay near a planned green hydrogen energy hub, adding potential future energy optionality for the project.

Western Australia was considered one of the world's top jurisdictions for mining investment, according to the Fraser Institute, the board noted.

The MRE was expected to serve as the foundation for mine planning, ore scheduling, and economic evaluation as Empire continued its efforts to bring the project toward development.

At 1048 BST, shares in Empire Metals were down 3.28% at 25.92p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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