REG - Empire Metals Ltd - Maiden Drilling Campaign at the Pitfield Project

Empire MetalsAnnouncement

23/03/2023 07:15

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RNS Number : 9304T  Empire Metals Limited  23 March 2023

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

 

23 March 2023

Empire Metals Limited

("Empire" or "the Company")

 

Maiden Drilling Campaign at the Pitfield Project - a new "Giant" Copper System

 

Empire Metals Limited (LON: EEE), the AIM-quoted resource exploration and
development company, is pleased to announce that the Company's maiden drill
programme is scheduled to commence by 31 March at the Pitfield Copper Project
("Pitfield") located in Western Australia, with a total of 3,100 metres of
Reverse Circulation ('RC') drilling planned.

 

Highlights

·    Commencement of a reconnaissance RC drilling campaign at Pitfield
which has demonstrated strong potential to be a newly discovered "Giant"
copper province;

·    Drilling to focus primarily on the Mt Scratch prospect area of the
licence where the Company has identified an extensive, highly
chargeable-highly resistive anomaly;

·    This highly chargeable-highly resistive anomaly was identified during
the recent Dipole-Dipole Induced Polarisation ('D-D IP') surveys (announced 6
February 2023), the results of which suggested the presence of large,
disseminated sulphide mineralised zones.

·    The maiden drill campaign will consist of 20 RC drill holes covering
a total of 3,100 metres, with the average downhole depth of each hole being
approximately 150 metres.

 

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: "I am pleased to announce the
confirmation of a commencement date for our maiden, reconnaissance drilling
campaign at Pitfield which follows on from the success of the Company's recent
DD-IP surveying and geochemical mapping activities. The objective of this
maiden drill programme is to better understand the geology and to determine
the significance of the highly chargeable-highly resistive zones identified
from the DD-IP survey results.

"We are also continuing with our soil sampling and DD-IP surveying activities
over the coming months to identify additional drill targets at Pitfield and
will be looking to commence a second drilling campaign once we have had the
opportunity to interpret the results from this reconnaissance mission. I look
forward to providing further updates on our drilling campaign as results
become available."

 

The Pitfield Copper 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
1,042km(2). 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

Pitfield lies within the Neoproterozoic Yandanooka intracratonic sedimentary
basin which has all the hallmarks of a "Giant" copper mineralised system,
potentially containing multiple Sediment-hosted Stratabound Copper ('SSC')
deposits. The Neoproterozoic is one of the major SSC mineralisation epochs,
temporally associated with the break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent and is
associated with several of the largest copper SSC deposits discovered to date,
the most important deposits being located in the Central African Copperbelt of
Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

The Company's interpretation of Pitfield and the associated geological model
is based on a basin scale alteration event, involving hot oxidising, fluids
carrying copper leached from the "red beds" and basement mafic rock, which
upon contact with reductants within the upper siltstones/sandstones resulted
in the copper precipitating and depositing along the reduced stratigraphic
layers.

 

This view is strongly supported by the results from geophysical surveys
(including gravity, magnetics, electro-magnetics and DD-IP), soil sampling and
geochemical mapping, surface geological mapping and rock sampling which
individually or combined have:

·    confirmed that an exceptionally large, oxidised fluid event has
occurred, extending over 40km N-S, as evidenced by magnetite-altered
stratigraphy and corresponding reduced conductance (likely due to removal of
graphite in the siltstone);

·    identified widespread copper, silver, nickel and zinc anomalism over
large parts of the Yandanooka basin (both by previous explorers and Empire),
particularly in association with magnetite-altered rocks;

·    identified several anomalies with DD-IP chargeable values that exceed
the threshold that would be considered characteristic of the presence of
disseminated sulphides; and

·    confirmed that these chargeable anomalies are also highly resistive
and are closely associated with the magnetite-altered stratigraphy and are
coincident with strong copper anomalism in both soils and rocks.

 

Planned Drilling Programme

The DD-IP survey traverses (refer Figure 2) have identified multiple drilling
targets. The highly chargeable anomaly detected in the three DD-IP survey
lines (PM01-03) just southwest of Mt Scratch appears to be very extensive,
covering an area of at least 1,500m in length and up to 800m wide. A second
highly chargeable anomaly was identified in DD-IP survey line GC01, located
12km south, which lies in a similar geological setting to that of Mt Scratch,
highlighting the extent of the system.

Figure 2.              Location of DD-IP traverses.

 

The main focus of the reconnaissance drill programme, where 16 out of a total
of 20 RC drill holes are planned, is to explore this extensive highly
chargeable anomaly near Mt Scratch, and in particular to drill adjacent to D-D
IP line PM01 which is located in the same vicinity as the high-grade soil and
rock samples that were recently collected (announced 30 January 2023) (Refer
Figure 3).

Figure 3. High Cu-in-soil and rock samples located in close proximity to DD-IP
traverses. The majority of the drill holes are located around Line PM01.

 

The IP Inversion models generated from the D-D IP surveys were prepared by
Terra Resources Pty Ltd ("Terra") which specialises in geophysical survey
design, acquisition, processing, modelling, inversion, data integration,
interpretation and drill hole targeting.

 

The IP Inversion models for DD-IP traverse PM01 is presented below in Figure
4. The IP Inversion model has been coloured to highlight in red areas where
the chargeability exceeds 15mV/V, which is indicative of permissive sulphide
zones.

Figure 4                PM01 (L6753800N) - Sulphide Cutoff (15
mV/V) Colouring

 

In order to better define areas to focus the maiden drill programme the IP
Inversion model was run without the sulphide cutoff filter set at 15mV/V
(refer Figure 5). The benefit of this was to highlight a very high
chargeability response subset within the larger zone that was permissive for
sulphides. This has allowed our exploration team to refine the drilling plan,
and to establish high priority targets within this broad area of anomalism.

 

Figure 5.              PM01 (L6753800N) - Optimised Colouring

 

 

**ENDS**

 

For further information please visit www.empiremetals.co.uk
(http://www.empiremetals.co.uk)   or contact:

 Empire Metals Ltd                                                                       Tel: 020 7907 9327

 Shaun Bunn / Greg Kuenzel
 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 / Ana Ribeiro / Max Bennett

 

About Empire Metals Limited

Empire Metals is an AIM-listed (LON: EEE) exploration and resource development
company with a project portfolio comprising copper 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 strong potential to be a new
"Giant" copper province.  The Company is also advancing the Eclipse-Gindalbie
Project in Western Australia, which is prospective for high-grade gold and
also kaolin, which is used extensively in a number of industries and is
considered to be a desirable feedstock for the production of 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 production region in central-southern Austria.

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