Exploration Licence Area Expanded at Pitfield

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

13 December 2022

Empire Metals Limited

("Empire" or "the Company")

Exploration Licence Area Expanded to cover the Potential "Giant" Copper Province at Pitfield

Empire Metals Limited (LON: EEE), the AIM-quoted resource exploration and development company, is pleased to announce an expansion of the exploration camp at the Pitfield Copper Project ('Pitfield'), located in Western Australia, with the addition of two new Exploration Licence Applications covering extensions to the north and south of the massive alteration footprint previously announced by the Company.  This is an important step for the Company which will provide additional exploration targets across what potentially could be a "Giant" copper mineralised system. 

Highlights

·    Pitfield has the potential to contain multiple sediment-hosted stratabound copper (SSC) deposits lying within what may be a "Giant" copper mineralised system.

·    A regionally extensive geophysical anomaly has been outlined over 40km N-S by three different physical properties; density, conductivity and magnetic susceptibility, likely caused by a massive, basin-scale alteration event.

·    Empire currently holds the two Exploration Licences, covering 615km², which extend over this massive alteration footprint and has applied for an additional two Exploration Licences covering a further 426.7 km².

·    Exploration field work, including soil sampling, geological mapping has commenced, and these activities will continue in Q1 2023 ahead of an intended drill programme to evaluate the economic significance of any SSC deposit.

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: "Recent geophysical surveys and geochemical mapping has identified a massive quartz-magnetite alteration footprint, extending over 40km N-S, with indications that the associated copper anomalisms may extend even further north and south.  Securing these additional exploration licences to the north and south at Pitfield is a major coup for the Company, ensuring that we have maximum coverage over what we believe is an emerging Giant copper province, potentially containing multiple SSC deposits.

"We have just completed the first stage of field work at Pitfield with over 400 soil and rock chip samples collected and being submitted for assay. Geological surface mapping indicated extensive magnetite occurrence, particularly within the Mt Scratch siltstones, which is another important indicator of a massive thermal alteration event that potentially led to the formation of numerous SSC deposits."

Pitfield Project Area and Key Features

Pitfield is located near Three Springs, a town  313 kilometres 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).

Empire holds a 70% interest in Pitfield and has established a separate unincorporated joint venture ('JV') for prospecting, exploration and such other activities with the original vendor Century Minerals Pty Ltd ('Century') who hold the remaining 30%. Pitfield was initially comprised of two granted Exploration Licences (E70/5465 and E70/5876) covering 615 sq km. The Empire-Century JV has applied for two additional Exploration Licences (E70/6320 and E70/6323) which will extend the exploration camp by an additional 426.7km² (refer Figure 2).

Figure 1. Pitfield Project Location                            Figure 2. Pitfield Tenements

Pitfield lies at a unique setting along the boundary of Western Yilgarn province, where a major craton-scale structure internal to Southwest Gneiss province intersects and offsets the Yilgarn margin and controls the position of the Neoproterozoic Yandanooka basin, the only example of this globally important copper prospective age adjacent to the western Yilgarn craton.

The Neoproterozoic is a globally important copper mineralisation era, which includes the copper belt of southern Africa (DRC, Zambia and Namibia), and the highly mineralised Paterson province in the north of Western Australia, host to major Cu-Au deposits such as Telfer, Winu and Havieron. Both are of similar age to the Yandanooka basin sequence.

Pitfield has all the hallmarks of a "Giant" copper mineralised system, potentially containing multiple sediment-hosted stratabound copper (SSC) deposits. Multiple historic high grade copper mines and prospects occur in the basin including the Baxters, Arrino, Mt Muggawa, and Mt Scratch copper mines.

Airborne Electromagentic ('AEM') and Airborne Magnetic ('AM') surveys at Pitfield have outlined exceptionally large and coincident gravity, electromagnetic and magnetic anomalies, extending over 40km N-S (refer Figure 3). These are interpreted as a basin-scale hydrothermal alteration event that involved the formation of copper mineralisation.  A regional quartz-magnetite alteration event would explain these coincident geophysical anomalies, and be consistent with SSC type copper deposits formed during same event.

Figure 3. Gravity-electromagnetic and magnetic anomalies at Pitfield.

The AEM survey identified a suite of highly conductive rocks within the Mt Scratch siltstone surrounding this massive gravity-electromagnetic-magnetic anomaly, which indicates the presence of conductive reductants such as graphite which make this regional siltstone an excellent host rock for copper sulphide deposits.

Widespread copper ('Cu'), silver ('Ag'), nickel ('Ni') and zinc ('Zn') anomalism has already been identified over large parts of the Yandanooka basin by previous explorers, particularly in association with magnetite-altered rocks.  For example, CRA (1993) completed IP geophysics and auger sampling defining a +7km Cu-in auger anomaly (plus Ag) along the western boundary which remains open to the east and south. CRA also completed soil sampling in the Mt Scratch area in the north which confirmed a large Cu-Ag anomaly. Ni is an important pathfinder for SSC deposits in these weathered conditions as it doesn't tend to remobilise in the laterites to the same extent as the Cu-Ag-Zn.

BHP (1984) completed IP geophysics, shallow RAB, and four stratigraphic diamond holes focused along the western contact of the Yandanooka basin within the basement Mullingarra gneiss, which were found to be significantly depleted of base metals (including Cu) indicating these basement rocks are the source of copper and other metals that have transported to younger rocks within the basin during a very large hydrothermal event forming copper-polymetallic geochemical anomalies, prospects and potentially copper deposits.

Current Exploration Activities and Future Work

A soil programme comprising 1030 sample sites was designed for the first stage of field work at Pitfield and an initial sampling was completed on 30 November 2022. As some of the sampling sites were still under crop they could not be accessed during this field trip hence a second field campaign is planned in early 2023. So far to date a total of 397 soil and 18 rock chip samples have been collected, representing 40% completion.

The sampling sites were largely focused on areas previously unexplored that were highlighted by the geophysical surveys as being highly prospective, coinciding with topographic highs where soil sampling is likely to be most effective (refer Figure 4). The sampling lines extended over a total of 77 line-kms with samples collected at 80m spacing along lines and from 5-20cm below surface using standard industry practices and sieved on site to -200 micron.  The samples have been submitted to Intertek, Perth for multi-element analysis.

Further soil sampling programmes, and an Induced Polarisation (IP) survey, measuring resistivity, is planned over the coming few months, ahead of an intended drill programme to evaluate the economic significance of any SSC deposit.

Figure 4.  Geological mapping and soil sampling at Pitfield.

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:

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 primary focus is the emerging "Giant" copper mineralised system at the Pitfield Copper Project and the high-grade Eclipse-Gindalbie Gold Project, both located in Western Australia.

At Pitfield, a recent expert review and airborne geophysical surveys have confirmed the project as having all the hallmarks of a "Giant" copper mineralised system, potentially containing multiple sediment-hosted stratabound copper (SSC) deposits.  The exploration licence for Pitfield was acquired at the same time as two further exploration projects, the Walton Copper-Gold Project and the Stavely Copper-Gold Project, and all three lie within mining regions well known for world-class and significant copper and/or gold discoveries.

Empire also holds a portfolio of three precious metals projects located an historically high-grade gold production region comprising the Rotgulden, Schonberg and Walchen prospects in central-southern Austria.

The Board continues to evaluate opportunities through which to realise the value of its wider portfolio and reviews further assets which meet the Company's investment criteria.