Empire Metals Restricted Broadcasts Staff Enlargement & Bulk Met Testing Commences
Empire Metals Restricted (LON:EEE), the AIM-quoted and OTCQB-traded useful resource exploration and improvement firm, is happy to announce a number of strategic technical appointments and partnerships that strengthen the in-house mission improvement staff and assist the development of the Pitfield Titanium Venture (“Pitfield” or the “Venture”) in Western Australia.
These appointments coincide with the graduation of bulk-scale metallurgical testing, a important step in progressing Pitfield towards business improvement.
Highlights
- Strategic Appointments to Speed up Improvement
Empire has appointed Mr. Alan Rubio as Examine Supervisor and Mr. Pocholo Aviso as Hydro-metallurgist. These appointments are aligned with the Firm’s goal to guage mining situations, optimise product improvement, assess business course of flowsheet choices and progress the Venture towards a feasibility examine. - Mr. Alan Rubio, an engineer and seasoned Examine and Venture Supervisor with over 28 years’ expertise working throughout the sources sector creating and evaluating mining initiatives, will lead the evaluation of mining, infrastructure and oversee key financial research to ship a strong mission improvement plan.
- Mr. Pocholo Aviso, an skilled hydro-metallurgist with a background within the TiO₂ pigment business (together with roles at Tronox and BHP’s Kwinana Nickel Refinery), will handle the titanium product improvement programme, specializing in product optimisation, course of flowsheet designs and evaluating market pathways.
- Partnership with Strategic Metallurgy Pty Ltd:
Empire has additionally partnered with Strategic Metallurgy, a extremely revered, Perth-based metallurgical consultancy. The agency will present oversight of the metallurgical testwork programme and technical steering to the Firm’s inside metallurgists and course of design engineers, serving to transition from bench-scale course of improvement to pilot-scale testing.
- Bulk-Scale Testwork:
The Firm has commenced bulk metallurgical testwork that may produce vital portions of mineral focus to assist large-scale beneficiation testing and, for the primary time, allow the availability of bulk product samples to potential finish customers. As well as, this testwork will present important technical info for the event of a business course of flowsheet.
These key appointments advance the Firm towards confirming mission economics and assessing mine design, course of flowsheets and product options-critical steps within the improvement pathway to business mine manufacturing.
Commenting on the announcement, Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, mentioned:
“I’m delighted to welcome Alan and Pocholo to our staff. Their technical experience might be invaluable as we transfer towards defining the financial potential and product technique for Pitfield. Constructing a robust in-house staff has been key to our progress to this point, and these appointments mark an vital subsequent step.
“We’re additionally very happy to be working with Strategic Metallurgy, whose popularity and expertise in course of improvement will considerably strengthen our metallurgical programme. The timing is right, with large-scale metallurgical testing now underway, together with ore scrubbing and spiral gravity separation, utilizing bulk samples collected earlier this yr.”
Course of Improvement Replace
A big-scale metallurgical testwork programme, involving mineral separation methods that require bulk feed samples, between roughly 0.5 to 1.5 tonnes every, has commenced utilizing the fabric collected from the February 2025 Air Core drilling. The programme contains ore scrubbing, desliming and gravity spiral testwork. Different gravity separation unit processes, similar to jigs and up-current classifiers, are additionally being evaluated.
Flotation testwork can be being carried out on the fines fraction, separated within the desliming step. As a part of this programme, bulk mineral concentrates might be produced for downstream processing, testing each hydrometallurgical and product ending flowsheet ideas. This may permit a constant, frequent mineral focus stream to be assessed throughout the vary of flowsheet choices which can be being thought-about downstream of the mineral separation step.
Determine 1. Images of bulk testwork programme displaying clockwise from backside left: deslimed feed pattern, moist scrubber unit, and gravity spirals .
This bulk testwork programme will produce vital volumes of concentrates which can feed into beneficiation testwork and lead to bigger product samples which will be delivered to potential finish customers for evaluation for the primary time.
As well as, this programme is designed to evaluate several types of course of tools and analyse a wide range of flowsheet choices, leading to technical info mandatory for creating a business course of flowsheet.
About Strategic Metallurgy
Strategic Metallurgy Pty Ltd, established in 2010, is a metallurgical consulting firm whose enterprise mannequin is to work with mining firms to develop their metallurgical technique and be sure that it suits into their total marketing strategy. With a confirmed observe document of offering professional consulting, course of improvement, testwork administration, feasibilities and strategic evaluations Strategic Metallurgy has the in depth hands-on expertise that Empire requires to progress the Pitfield Venture via the metallurgical testing, course of modelling, flowsheet design phases to pilot plant design and operation.
The Pitfield Titanium Venture
Positioned throughout the Mid-West area of Western Australia, close to the northern wheatbelt city of Three Springs, the Pitfield titanium mission lies 313km north of Perth and 156km southeast of Geraldton, the Mid West area’s capital and main port. Western Australia is ranked as one of many high mining jurisdictions on this planet in response to the Fraser Institute’s Funding Attractiveness Index revealed in 2023, and has mining-friendly insurance policies, steady authorities, transparency, and superior know-how experience. Pitfield has current connections to port (each street & rail), HV energy substations, and is close by to pure gasoline pipelines (refer Determine 2).
Determine 2. Pitfield Venture Location displaying the Mid-West Area Infrastructure and Companies.
Competent Particular person Assertion
The scientific and technical info on this report that pertains to course of metallurgy relies on info reviewed by Ms Narelle Marriott, an worker of Empire Metals Australia Pty Ltd, an entirely owned subsidiary of Empire. Ms Marriott is a member of the AusIMM and has ample expertise related to the model of mineralisation and kind of deposit into account and to the exercise being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Particular person as outlined within the JORC Code 2012. Ms. Marriott consents to the inclusion on this announcement of the issues based mostly on their info within the type and context by which it seems.
The technical info on this report that pertains to the geology and exploration of the Pitfield Venture has been compiled by Mr Andrew Faragher, an worker of Empire Metals Australia Pty Ltd, an entirely owned subsidiary of Empire. Mr. Faragher is a member of the AusIMM and has ample expertise that’s related to the model of mineralisation and kind of deposit into account and to the exercise being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Particular person as outlined within the JORC Code 2012. Mr Faragher consents to the inclusion on this launch of the issues based mostly on his info within the type and context by which it seems.
Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure
Sure info contained on this announcement would have been deemed inside info for the needs of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, as integrated into UK legislation by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, till the discharge of this announcement.
**ENDS**
For additional info please go to www.empiremetals.co.uk or contact:
About Empire Metals Restricted
Empire Metals is an AIM-listed and OTCQB-traded exploration and useful resource improvement firm (LON:EEE)(OTCQB:EPMLF) with a major deal with creating Pitfield, an rising big titanium mission in Western Australia.
The high-grade titanium discovery at Pitfield is of unprecedented scale, with airborne surveys figuring out a large, coincident gravity and magnetics anomaly extending over 40km by 8km by 5km deep. Drill outcomes have indicated wonderful continuity in grades and consistency of the in-situ mineralised beds and make sure that the sandstone beds maintain the higher-grade titanium dioxide (TiO₂) values throughout the interbedded succession of sandstones, siltstones and conglomerates. The Firm is targeted on two key prospects (Cosgrove and Thomas), which have been recognized as having thick, high-grade, near-surface, in-situ bedded TiO₂ mineralisation, every being over 7km in strike size.
An Exploration Goal* for Pitfield was declared in 2024, masking the Thomas and Cosgrove mineral prospects, and was estimated to comprise between 26.4 to 32.2 billion tonnes with a grade vary of 4.5 to five.5% TiO2. Included throughout the complete Exploration Goal* is a subset that covers the in-situ weathered sandstone zone, which extends from floor to a median vertical depth of 30m to 40m and is estimated to comprise between 4.0 to 4.9 billion tonnes with a grade vary of 4.8 to five.9% TiO2.
The Exploration Goal* covers an space lower than 20% of the general mineral system at Pitfield which demonstrates the potential for vital additional upside.
Empire is now accelerating the financial improvement of Pitfield, with a imaginative and prescient to provide a high-value titanium metallic or pigment high quality product at Pitfield, to understand the total worth potential of this distinctive deposit.
The Firm additionally has two additional exploration initiatives in Australia; the Eclipse Venture and the Walton Venture in Western Australia, along with three valuable metals initiatives positioned in a traditionally high-grade gold producing area of Austria.
*The potential amount and grade of the Exploration Goal is conceptual in nature. There was inadequate exploration to estimate a Mineral Useful resource and it’s unsure if additional exploration will end result within the estimation of a Mineral Useful resource. See RNS dated 12 June 2024 for full particulars.
This info is offered by RNS, the information service of the London Inventory Trade. RNS is permitted by the Monetary Conduct Authority to behave as a Main Info Supplier in the UK. Phrases and situations referring to the use and distribution of this info could apply. For additional info, please contact rns@lseg.com or go to www.rns.com.
