Empire Metals Ltd (LON:EEE) confirmed that the next phase of works at its Eclipse Gold Project, in Western Australia, is fully funded and will commence “very soon”.
The exploration and resource development company said the reverse circulation drilling component of the next phase of work at Eclipse is expected to commence next week followed by the diamond drilling in early April.
READ: Empire Metals sets out plans for the Eclipse gold project
The latter will generate sample for further studies, including geotechnical logging and metallurgical testing.
The AIM-listed firm announced on Tuesday a programme for further work at the project, located 55 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie.
The plans include undertaking additional structural interpretations to support updated vein wireframes and modelling, resource modelling and estimation, and preliminary open pit optimisations.
A further 1,700 metres of reverse circulation drilling will also take place 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.
An additional 200 metres of diamond drilling in three holes will be undertaken to duplicate selected recent reverse circulation 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.
“We are very pleased to be able to start to execute this next phase of fully funded work at Eclipse within the next few days,” said Mike Struthers, director of Empire Metals, in a release.
“We believe this phase will allow the company to map out the path to an initial open pit operation, along with improved definition of possible extensions to resources and the scope for additional future open pits and we look forwards to providing more information on progress in due course."