Empire to Focus on Advanced Exploration Opportunities at Eclipse and Gindalbie Projects and Termination of Option on Central Menzies Gold Project
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http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/0045B_1-2022-2-8.pdf
Empire Metals Limited, the AIM-quoted resource exploration and development company, is pleased to announce that it will commence a strategic phase of exploratory drilling at the Eclipse Gold Project (‘Eclipse’) in conjunction with an initial drilling campaign at the new Gindalbie Gold Project (‘Gindalbie’), located immediately adjacent and southeast to Eclipse within the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. This significantly larger, newly combined Eclipse-Gindalbie project area provides the Company with an exciting advanced gold exploration opportunity. As a result, the Company has decided not to take up the Option over the Central Menzies Gold Project (‘Central Menzies’) in order to focus its activities on the more promising Eclipse and Gindalbie Projects.
Overview:
· A substantial strategic drilling campaign has been designed for Eclipse, in conjunction with an initial drilling campaign within the adjacent Gindalbie project area (refer Figure 1), which will be implemented over the coming weeks.
· Empire expects the Tribute Agreement allowing the Company to explore and mine the Gindalbie Project (refer announcement dated 28 January 2021) to be concluded prior to the commencement of drilling within the Gindalbie project area.
· The Gindalbie project area increases Empire’s mineralised footprint around its flagship Eclipse Project by over 200% to a total of 943ha and covers several historic high-grade gold prospects that, together with the Eclipse and Jack’s Dream prospects, represent multiple structures within one large gold system.
· The highly anticipated next round of exploratory drilling at Eclipse, utilising both reverse circulation (‘RC’) and Diamond Drill (‘DD’) holes, is designed to gather further geological and structural information around the Eclipse shaft (‘Eclipse’) and Jack’s Dream shaft (‘Jack’s Dream’) and to prove continuity of the gold mineralisation below the gold-depleted zone of weathering.
· In addition to drilling the deeper targets at Eclipse and Jack’s Dream, Empire will commence an RC drilling campaign at Gindalbie, looking to not only extend the mineralised trend a further 2km to the southeast of Eclipse but also to understand the extent and origin of what the Company believes to be a much larger gold system.
· Empire announced a summary of its exploration activities at Central Menzies on 28 January 2022, including the results of a second phase of RC drilling which focused on testing the Nugget Patch gold trend to confirm if there was higher grade mineralisation sitting at depth below a supergene gold enriched zone and to confirm historic high grade gold intersections closely associated with the main workings at Teglio. The results were generally inconclusive, with no obvious continuity along strike and no significant high-grade intercepts.
· The Company has therefore decided to terminate the Option over Central Menzies and instead intends to focus on the known high-grade gold assets centred around the Eclipse-Gindalbie project area as well as look for further acquisitions within Australia.
· Empire remains well funded and capable of executing a substantial amount of exploration over the coming months with over £2.1 million in current cash reserves. The current favourable exchange rate between the Pound Sterling and the Australian Dollar provides the Company with an opportunity to carry out additional exploration activities for less expenditure than originally envisaged.
Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: “This next strategic round of drilling at the Eclipse and Jack’s Dream lodes will test for both high grade gold mineralisation at depth and continuity of the mineralisation between the previous high grade RC drilling intercepts. We are focusing on obtaining diamond core samples from which we expect to gather important geological and structural data which will enable Empire to build upon and improve the geological model at Eclipse.”
“By developing a more robust understanding of the structural controls on mineralisation we can step out our drilling targets with confidence and look to extend the known footprint of gold mineralisation within the combined Eclipse-Gindalbie project area, which we believe contains a very significant high-grade gold system.”
Figure 1. Location Map
Eclipse Drilling programme based on recent “Strategic Review”
Empire has to date completed three exploratory drilling programmes at Eclipse, consisting of 111 reverse circulation (‘RC’) drill holes for a total of 9,121 metres and three diamond drill holes for a total of 201 metres. Significant intercepts from the RC drill programmes at Eclipse (above 1.3 ppm Au) are reported in Table 1 below.
Late last year Empire completed a strategic technical review of all the data collected over the Eclipse licence area, focusing on understanding the structural controls on the high-grade gold lodes identified by previous drilling. The gold mineralisation at Eclipse is hosted in sheared felsic to intermediate volcanics and volcaniclastic sediments, and associated with pyrite, pyrrhotite and quartz veining. Analyses of the structural data collected during the diamond drilling last year has confirmed the gold mineralisation to be associated with shear foliation within the volcaniclastic sediments.
The current database for Eclipse shows only 20% of the RC holes drilled to date have penetrated below the gold-depleted regolith zone into fresh rock. The results from previous drilling also indicate that gold mineralisation likely continues to greater depths, and that further drilling is warranted to test the strike and depth extensions of multiple gold structures at Eclipse.
A summary of the exploration activities, carried out by Empire at Central Menzies since entering into the Option Agreement in May 2021, was recently announced and included the results of a second phase of RC drilling. The second round of drilling was focused on testing the Nugget Patch gold trend to confirm if there was higher grade mineralisation sitting at depth below a supergene gold enriched zone and to confirm historic high grade gold intersections closely associated with the main workings at Teglio. The results were generally inconclusive, with no obvious continuity along strike and no significant high-grade intercepts within fresh rock. After a detailed technical evaluation Empire considers that the results achieved to date do not warrant further exploration expenditure and has decided not the take up the Option, much preferring to focus the Company’s exploration activities on the highly prospective Eclipse-Gindalbie region and also to look further afield for acquisitions within Australia.
Competent Person Statement
The technical information in this report that relates to the Eclipse Gold Project has been compiled by Mr Andrew Bewsher, a full-time employee of BM Geological Services. Mr Bewsher is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Mr Bewsher has been engaged as a consultant by Empire Metals Limited. Mr Bewsher 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 2012 Edition of the ‘Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves’. Mr Bewsher 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 or contact:
Shaun Bunn
Empire Metals Ltd
Tel: 020 7907 9327
Greg Kuenzel
Empire Metals Ltd
Tel: 020 7907 9327
