Drilling Recommences at Eclipse Gold Project

To view the announcement with the illustrative images please use the following link: http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/6324W_1-2021-4-26.pdf

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

27 April 2021

EMPIRE METALS LIMITED

Drilling Recommences Alongside Initial Non-Compliant Resource and
Other Studies at Eclipse Gold Project

Empire Metals Limited ('Empire' or the 'Company'), the AIM-quoted exploration and resource development company, is pleased to confirm that the next phase of works at the Company's Eclipse Gold Project, located 55km north-east of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia ('Eclipse' or the 'Project'), as announced on 17 March 2021, has commenced. 

Drill Programme

The fully funded drill programme is focussed on two main objectives:

1.    Resource drilling at Eclipse Mine target - 200m of diamond drilling in three holes to duplicate selected recent reverse circulation ("RC") drillholes for resource estimation purposes, to enable initial geotechnical core logging as input to a preliminary pit design, and to provide samples for metallurgical testing.

2.    Expansion drilling at new Jack's Dream discovery - 1,700m of RC drilling in 17 holes, mainly focussed on infill drilling adjacent to wide intersections of mineralisation and high-grade intercepts around the Jack's Dream workings, north-west of the Eclipse shaft, to further expand the mineralisation and potential resources.

Maiden Resource at Eclipse

An initial non-compliant resource has been prepared for the Eclipse shaft area. The non-compliant resource, based on a cut-off grade of 1.3 g/t Au and a minimum downhole length of 2m, is below. 

* The data was top-cut at 22 g/t Au

The current diamond drilling and other works (metallurgical testing etc) will enable an updated resource estimate to be prepared, compliant with JORC 2012.

Eclipse Mine Target

Work is also continuing at the Eclipse Mine Target on optimisations for a potential open pit which may be suitable for initial trial mining utilising toll treatment. Metallurgical test work on samples from the diamond drill programme will also feed into these studies along with geotechnical logging to confirm slope design assumptions, and an initial environmental study which is currently underway.

Mike Struthers, Director of Empire Metals, said: "This next phase of drilling around the Jack's Dream old workings will be especially interesting to see if we can extend the wide near-surface mineralised intercepts we reported previously.  There is potential for this to become a satellite to the Eclipse Mine target, expanding the resources and open pit mining opportunity.

"Meanwhile our work on resources, pit optimisations and related studies at the Eclipse Mine target continues. Initial assessments indicate an open pit operation at Eclipse would fall within the small-scale mining legislation in Western Australia, which provides a fast-track route to production whilst minimising the environmental footprint, but further technical data are required to confirm certain design assumptions. The trial mining route, utilising toll treatment, would provide invaluable metallurgical and operational data. 

"We look forwards to updating the market as results from drilling and other works becomes available."