Empire Metals (AIM: EEE) has announced a significant exploration target for two areas at its Pitfield titanium project in Western Australia.
Initial estimates suggest that the Cosgrove and Thomas targets may contain between 26.4 and 32.2 billion tonnes of titanium, with a grade range of 4.5% to 5.5% TiO2.
An exploration target provides an early indication of a deposit’s potential size and will be further refined through additional exploration and grade verification.
Empire Metals also noted that the target includes a recently discovered weathered sandstone zone, extending from the surface to an average vertical depth of 30 to 40 meters.
The recently discovered weathered sandstone zone alone is estimated to contain between 4.0 and 4.9 billion tonnes with a grade range of 4.8% to 5.9% TiO2.
Overall, the exploration target encompasses approximately 59 sq km, extending down to a vertical depth of 150 meters, and is constrained by a 2% TiO2 cut-off grade.
Notably, the exploration target area represents less than 20% of the entire mineral system at Pitfield, which is characterized by a 40km by 8km by 5km deep magnetics anomaly, supported by additional data, according to Empire.
Empire also highlighted that the area includes “numerous other high-potential prospects” along the 40km strike length that currently lack sufficient drill hole data to be included in the exploration target.
Shaun Bunn, Empire’s Managing Director, commented, “I am delighted to announce this very impressive exploration target result, which truly represents an extraordinary achievement for the company given it was just over 12 months ago that our maiden drilling discovered a giant, high-grade, titanium-rich mineral system.
The exploration target is an important milestone and a significant first step towards developing a Mineral Resource Estimate.
Importantly, the exploration target does not include all the zones of high-grade titanium mineralization currently identified by the company outside of these two key prospects, both along strike and at depth below the 150m mark.”
