TIDMEEE
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 or
contact:
Empire Metals Ltd Tel: 020 7907 9327
Shaun Bunn / Greg Kuenzel
S. P. Angel Corporate Finance LLP Tel: 020 3470 0470
(Nomad & Broker)
Ewan Leggat / Adam Cowl
-------------------
Shard Capital Partners LLP (Joint Tel: 020 7186 9950
Broker)
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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