Empire Metal said that all forty holes drilled in its latest exploration programme at Pitfield in Western Australia indicated titanium "in every metre".
Highlights from the programme included 168m at a grade of 6.91% TiO2 (titanium dioxide) from 12m, while from the surface two holes returned 180m at 6.14% TiO and 154m at 5.50%.
Empire added the drilling confirmed that “ There is an abundance of thick, strongly mineralised sandstone beds that come to surface within broad, plus 1.5km wide areas of this giant mineral system and that these mineralised beds have a strike extent of at least 6 to 7km”.
Next drilling will target these sandstone beds, said Empire, while exploring other potential high-grade areas along the identified magnetics-gravity anomaly.
Shaun Bunn, Empire’s managing director, commented: "This second, highly successful RC drilling campaign has identified extensive shallow sandstone-rich beds that contain higher-grade titanium mineralisation.
"A key highlight from all of our drilling to date is that out of the 61 RC holes and the three diamond drill holes completed so far, all but one RC drill hole intercepted thick beds of high-grade TiO2 mineralisation, and that the single barren RC drill hole was terminated near surface due to thick sand cover that collapsed the drill collar.
"Subsequent RC drilling below the sand cover has confirmed TiO2 mineralisation.
"Our third RC drilling campaign is scheduled to start this quarter and we are extremely excited by the prospect of making further high-grade discoveries along the 40km by 8km giant mineral system as well as providing additional metallurgical samples.”
Empire holds a 70% interest in Pitfield.