REG - Empire Metals Ltd - High-Purity TiO2 Product Achieved

Empire MetalsAnnouncement

10/03/2025 07:00

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RNS Number : 8690Z  Empire Metals Limited  10 March 2025

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

10 March 2025

Empire Metals Limited

("Empire" or "the Company")

 

High-Purity TiO(2) Product Achieved

 

Empire Metals Limited (LON: EEE), the AIM-listed resource exploration and
development company, is pleased to announce the results from its recent
titanium dioxide ("TiO(2)") product development testwork programme, carried
out on mineral concentrates produced from the in-situ mineralised weathered
cap that extends across the Pitfield Project ('Pitfield'), located in Western
Australia.

 

Highlights

 

·    Preliminary testwork has delivered a high-purity TiO(2) product,
which assayed at 91.6% TiO(2).

 

·    The TiO(2) product under development was entirely free of any
deleterious impurities and is suitable for high-quality titanium sponge metal
or high-grade titanium dioxide pigment production.

 

·    Additional testwork is underway to refine the metallurgical
implementation and to further improve the product quality.

 

·    Metallurgical bulk samples currently being collected from the
weathered cap (announced 17 February 2025), will be utilised over the coming
months to produce a bulk product sample which will enable the Company to
advance its product marketing strategy.

 

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: "I am extremely pleased to announce the
breakthrough achievement of recovering a high-purity TiO(2) product that would
be suitable for either titanium sponge metal or high-quality TiO(2) pigment
production. Development of the processing flowsheet continues at a remarkable
pace, a testament to the talent of our project team. Now, with the success of
our very first product finishing trial, we have tested every stage of our
process flowsheet, confirming its suitability in recovering titanium dioxide
from anatase and rutile, the most abundant titanium minerals encountered in
the in-situ mineralised weathered cap.

 

"The focus will now shift back to developing a more comprehensive
understanding of the ore characteristics, and the potential to further improve
the efficiency of each stage of the process, through further bench scale
testing. This ongoing work will cover the entire flowsheet, including ore
handling, mineral separation, beneficiation, purification and product
finishing.  With the pending delivery of our metallurgical bulk samples,
collected from the current air-core drilling programme, we will be able to
upscale the bench scale testwork to include industry scale testing and look to
commence the engineering work necessary for the design of the pilot plant."

 

Product Development Testwork

Development of the overall process flowsheet continues to advance, with the
metallurgical testwork currently focused on producing a high-purity TiO(2)
product. As recently announced (13 February 2025) the upfront ore processing,
mineral separation and mineral concentrate leaching stages of the process
flowsheet have now been tested and proven to be effective for recovering
anatase and rutile into a leach liquor. The important next step in the process
aimed to recover the titanium from the leach liquor, as a high-grade, saleable
product (Figure 1).

Figure 1.  Conceptual Flowsheet for the Pitfield Titanium Project.

 

Samples of in-situ weathered mineralisation from the diamond drill core
programme carried out in February - March 2024 (results announced 28 May 2024)
were selected from a continuous interval of drill core. Quarter core was
coarse crushed and blended to produce a composite sample for testing. A
subsample was taken forward for further comminution prior to a deslimes stage.
A screen was used to split the sample at 38µm. Material coarser than 38µm
was then processed over a wet gravity shaking table in a single pass. Material
finer than 38µm was filtered prior to high intensity conditioning and a
single rougher froth flotation step.

 

Conventional operating conditions for the gravity recovery stage were used to
produce a titanium mineral concentrate from the coarse fraction. For the froth
flotation stage, the fine fraction was processed using reagents and physical
conditions similar to that applied in the kaolinite industry, where reverse
flotation is used to recover anatase from the kaolinite products.

 

The wet gravity shaking table concentrates and flotation concentrates were
taken forward for hydrometallurgical testwork. An acid bake-water leach
process using sulphuric acid was applied, with testwork parameters selected
from several research references papers on the subject. In this process step
the titanium is recovered from the mineral concentrates into the liquor as
titanyl sulphate (TiSO(4)) and the residue solids and liquor are then
separated after the water leach step, using filtration, with the liquor moving
forward for purification and product finishing testwork.

 

The liquor purification stage testwork at this preliminary stage, was solely
focused on iron removal, converting ferrous (Fe(3+)) to ferric (Fe(2+)). A
hydrolysis stage followed, involving the heating of the liquor, which broke
down the titanyl sulphate, resulting in the production of hydrated TiO(2) and
H(2)SO(4).

 

Finally, as part of the product finishing stage, the hydrated TiO(2) was
separated from the liquor using a centrifuge, and the solids were then
calcined to remove water and produce a high-purity TiO(2) compound.

 

The purification and product finishing steps were not optimized due to the
small volume of leach liquor available for testing at this early stage of
development. Two additional, larger samples are currently being tested through
this process to improve metallurgical performance and product quality. Further
testwork campaigns, on the metallurgical bulk samples currently being
collected from the in-situ weathered cap (announced 17 February 2025), will be
carried out over the coming months and a bulk product sample will be produced
for marketing purposes.

 

The TiO(2) product purification and product finishing stages were tested at
ALS Metallurgy laboratories, located locally in Perth, Western Australia. All
assays were undertaken at ALS Metallurgy by their in-house metallurgy specific
assay lab.

 

The product under development was assayed using XRF and contained 91.6%
TiO(2).  The overall analysis confirmed the purity of the Pitfield ores with
extremely low levels of deleterious elements such as uranium, thorium,
vanadium and chromium (refer Table 1). These results are extremely
encouraging, particularly so given that the testwork was the Company's first
attempt at producing a finished product and not all of the purification and
product finishing steps have yet been applied.

 

 Product Analysis (XRF)  %
 TiO(2)                  91.6
 Al                      0.77
 Ca                      0.1
 Fe                      1.33
 La                      <0.01
 Nd                      <0.01
 Pb                      <0.001
 P                       0.26
 Si                      1.15
 Th                      0.001
 U                       <0.001
 V                       0.004

Table 1. Finished Product Analysis

 

 

 Figure 2. Purification and product finishing testwork, photos from left to right: titanyl sulphate solution from leaching stage, hydrated TiO(2) produced from hydrolysis, and the calcined TiO(2) product.

 

The Pitfield Titanium Project

Located within the Mid-West region of Western Australia, near the northern
wheatbelt town of Three Springs, the Pitfield titanium project lies 313km
north of Perth and 156km southeast of Geraldton, the Mid West region's capital
and major port. Western Australia is ranked as one of the top mining
jurisdictions in the world according to the Fraser Institute's Investment
Attractiveness Index published in 2023, and has mining-friendly policies,
stable government, transparency, and advanced technology expertise. Pitfield
has existing connections to port (both road & rail), HV power substations,
and is nearby to natural gas pipelines as well as a green energy hydrogen fuel
hub, which is under planning and development (refer Figure 3).

Figure 3. Pitfield Project Location showing the Mid-West Region Infrastructure
and Services.

 

Competent Person Statement

The scientific and technical information in this report that relates to
process metallurgy is based on information reviewed by Ms Narelle Marriott, an
employee of Empire Metals Australia Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Empire. Ms Marriott is a member of the AusIMM and has sufficient experience
relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under
consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent
Person as defined in the JORC Code 2012. Ms. Marriott consents to the
inclusion in this announcement of the matters based on their information in
the form and context in which it appears.

 

The technical information in this report that relates to the geology and
exploration of the Pitfield Project has been compiled by Mr Andrew Faragher,
an employee of Empire Metals Australia Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Empire. Mr. Faragher is a member of the AusIMM and has sufficient experience
that is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under
consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent
Person as defined in the JORC Code 2012. Mr Faragher consents to the inclusion
in this release of the matters based on his information in the form and
context in which it appears.

 

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
(http://www.empiremetals.co.uk) or contact:

 Empire Metals Ltd

 Shaun Bunn / Greg Kuenzel / Arabella Burwell                                            Tel: 020 4583 1440
 S. P. Angel Corporate Finance LLP (Nomad & Broker)                                      Tel: 020 3470 0470

 Ewan Leggat / Adam Cowl
 Shard Capital Partners LLP (Joint Broker)                                               Tel: 020 7186 9950

 Damon Heath
 St Brides Partners Ltd (Financial                                                       Tel: 020 7236 1177
 PR)

 Susie Geliher / Charlotte Page

 

About Empire Metals Limited

Empire Metals is an AIM-listed exploration and resource development company
(LON: EEE) with a primary focus on developing Pitfield, an emerging giant
titanium project in Western Australia.

 

The high-grade titanium discovery at Pitfield is of unprecedented scale, with
airborne surveys identifying a massive, coincident gravity and magnetics
anomaly extending over 40km by 8km by 5km deep. Drill results have indicated
excellent continuity in grades and consistency of the in-situ mineralised beds
and confirm that the sandstone beds hold the higher-grade titanium dioxide
(TiO₂) values within the interbedded succession of sandstones, siltstones
and conglomerates. The Company is focused on two key prospects (Cosgrove and
Thomas), which have been identified as having thick, high-grade, near-surface,
in-situ bedded TiO₂ mineralisation, each being over 7km in strike length.

 

An Exploration Target* for Pitfield was declared in 2024, covering the Thomas
and Cosgrove mineral prospects, and was estimated to contain between 26.4 to
32.2 billion tonnes with a grade range of 4.5 to 5.5% TiO(2).  Included
within the total Exploration Target* is a subset that covers the in-situ
weathered sandstone zone, which extends from surface to an average vertical
depth of 30m to 40m and is estimated to contain between 4.0 to 4.9 billion
tonnes with a grade range of 4.8 to 5.9% TiO(2).

 

The Exploration Target* covers an area less than 20% of the overall mineral
system at Pitfield which demonstrates the potential for significant further
upside.

 

*The potential quantity and grade of the Exploration Target is conceptual in
nature. There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource
and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a
Mineral Resource. See RNS dated 12 June 2024 for full details.

 

 

Empire is now accelerating the economic development of Pitfield, with a vision
to produce a high-value titanium metal or pigment quality product at Pitfield,
to realise the full value potential of this exceptional deposit.

 

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

 

 

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