LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Empire Metals reported a maiden JORC-compliant mineral resource for its Pitfield project in Western Australia on Tuesday, describing it as one of the largest and highest-grade titanium resources globally.
The AIM-traded firm said the estimate totalled 2.2 billion tonnes at 5.1% titanium dioxide, containing 113 million tonnes of titanium dioxide across the Thomas and Cosgrove deposits.

Within that, the weathered zone holds 1.26 billion tonnes at 5.2% titanium dioxide for 65.6 million tonnes of contained titanium dioxide, and the Indicated category comprises 697 million tonnes at 5.3% titanium dioxide for 37.2 million tonnes.

The company said high-grade, near-surface mineralisation occurs from surface with strong continuity, and conventional processing has already produced a high-purity product grading 99.25% titanium dioxide with negligible impurities, suitable for titanium sponge metal or pigment production.

At Thomas, drilling outlined a high-grade core averaging about 6% titanium dioxide over a continuous 3.6 kilometre strike and more than 2km width, which Empire expected could provide sufficient feedstock for over 30 years of initial mine life.

The combined resource area currently represented less than 20% of the known mineralised surface footprint, with the underlying geophysical anomaly remaining open at depth.

"Pitfield is truly one of the natural geological wonders of the world: a district scale, giant titanium rich ore deposit which has remained hidden in plain sight until recently discovered by Empire," said managing director Shaun Bunn.

"Credit goes to our talented exploration and technical team who have delivered one of the world's largest titanium MRE, a metallurgical flowsheet and a saleable product, all within a remarkable short period of 30 months from our first drill hole."

He added that the "incredible success achieved to date" had spurred the team's endeavours to untap the true potential of the "phenomenal project", adding that it remained focused on completing its processing optimisation testwork and moving rapidly into continuous piloting early next year.

"We have already commenced engineering, environmental and marketing studies which combined, will help confirm the commercial viability of Pitfield and form the basis for a final investment decision."

Empire, which owns 70% of Pitfield in joint venture with Century Minerals, said gross margins from the friable, in-situ weathered zone could benefit from low-cost strip mining with no overburden, inter-burden or blasting required.

The project is connected by existing rail to deep-water ports and lies near power and gas infrastructure, which the company said positions it well to supply titanium and critical mineral markets in Asia, the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia.

Further resource drilling was planned to expand the estimate and upgrade portions into Measured and Indicated categories, including grid drilling at Cosgrove over the next six months and infill and diamond work at Thomas into 2026.

The maiden resource, prepared by Snowden Optiro and reported under the 2012 JORC code, would support ongoing engineering and economic studies ahead of a potential investment decision.

At 1315 BST, Empire Metals shares were down 11.86% at 52p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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