Empire Metals Ltd (AIM:EEE, OTCQX:EPMLF) managing director Shaun Bunn spoke to Proactive about the company’s Pitfield project in Western Australia, one of the largest titanium discoveries globally.
He discussed the unique mineralogy, major resource estimate, and upcoming milestones as the project advances towards pilot-scale development.
We take a closer look at what was said.
Proactive: Shaun, very good to speak with you. Pitfield's maiden resource has been described as one of the largest titanium discoveries in the world. What does that mean in practical terms for the project's long-term potential?
Shaun Bunn: This is one of our key milestones. We've been highlighting that we were going to get the MRE statement out around about this time. What we should highlight is the sheer size of this — it simply confirms what we've been saying for a very long time.
Pitfield is a giant titanium mineral system. It's district scale. The high grades and continuity of grades are extraordinary. Last year, we released an exploration target that showed this was the largest known discovery of titanium anywhere on the planet.
The MRE is a subset of that, but we've got 2.2 billion tonnes of ore and 113 million tonnes of titanium dioxide alone in that orebody. That really does set us up as one of the largest resources ever reported.
Proactive: You've also mentioned that nature’s effectively done much of the processing at Pitfield. How does that translate into lower development or operating costs for the project?
Shaun Bunn: Yes, this is one of the great breakthroughs. Earlier this year we advanced our mineralogical studies, and we’re now really just focusing on the more weathered zone for the time being. There’s an extraordinarily large resource just sitting in the weathered cap. So we've got a multi-generational mine there.
Due to the weathering and alteration of the titanium minerals, it makes for a far simpler and easier processing route to get to a high-grade, high-purity product.
The weathered cap is what we're now focusing on. We've identified very high-grade cores at surface at both Thomas and Cosgrave. We're now moving towards mining studies and really getting into the economics of this enormous orebody.
Proactive: So you're now moving into the pilot-scale test work and early engineering studies. What key milestones should investors watch out for over the next 6 to 12 months?
Shaun Bunn: There’s a lot happening, and it’s going to be an extremely exciting period for us. First, we haven’t quite finished drilling yet. That won’t delay the piloting stage, but I want to highlight that even though this is already a huge discovery, we’ve only just started drilling at the Cosgrave target.
Most of the current mineral resource is from Thomas. We’ll go back towards the end of the year to drill out Cosgrave and return to Thomas to upgrade the resource to measured and indicated. Ultimately, we want to get to the stage where we have ore reserves.
Bulk sampling and bulk test work programs are continuing at multiple labs in Western Australia. These programs will get us into piloting early next year.
I also want to pause and point out something we’ve talked about before — that the orebody is different. The type of minerals are very unusual. Pitfield is a unique discovery. One key feature is that we don’t have any ilmenite in the orebody.
It’s anatase, rutile, and some iron oxides — but no ilmenite. As a result, we don’t have to go through a very expensive, polluting process to produce titanium dioxide pigment or metal. That gives us an enormous competitive advantage over, I think, 95% of the world’s supply chain.
We’re going to keep pushing that part of the development phase to show just how this project can come online and become the dominant titanium supplier.
Proactive: Shaun, I hope you'll continue to keep us updated with your progress. Congratulations again on the MRE.