Empire Resources Ltd (ASX:ERL) is buoyed by promising precious and base metal results returned from the Yuinmery Project in the Murchison region of Western Australia, including copper hits greater than 1%.
These results come from 2,244 metres of reverse circulation (RC) drilling completed during June and July 2021 with nickel, cobalt and palladium assays also providing encouragement.
Drilling was designed to further delineate the lateral extent and establish continuity of mineralisation at YT01 copper-gold-PGM prospect, Smith’s Well copper-nickel-cobalt prospect and A Zone copper-gold prospect, and to test geochemical and geophysical targets at MRP and Constantine prospects.
“Extremely encouraging”
Empire managing director Sean Richardson said: “The RC drilling results from Yuinmery are extremely encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Yuinmery Project offers significant opportunities for further multi-element mineral discoveries.
“The deep RC drilling has yielded strong copper, nickel, cobalt and palladium results supporting the hypothesis that mineralisation at Yuinmery will continue at depth.”
Strong results
A Zone results include:
- 8 metres at 0.78% copper from 124 metres including 4 metres at 1.03% copper from 128 metres; and
- 8 metres at 0.75% copper from 68 metres including 4 metres at 0.98% copper from 72 metres.
Smith’s Well prospect returned up to:
- 16 metres at 0.51% copper, 0.16% nickel and 0.031% cobalt from 255 metres including 1-metre at 1.05% copper, 0.19% nickel and 0.033% cobalt from 261 metres; and
- 5 metres at 0.65% copper, 0.13% nickel and 0.039% cobalt from 110 metres including 1-metre at 1.90% copper, 0.18% nickel and 0.038% cobalt from 112 metres.
The results from Smith’s Well are from the deepest mineralised intercepts drilled to date, supporting the hypothesis that Smith’s Well may host economic mineralisation at depth.
Constantine returned 12 metres at 0.41 g/t palladium and 0.05 g/t platinum from 120 metres including 4 metres 0.64 g/t palladium and 0.06 g/t platinum from 124 metres.
The drilling at Constantine ended in mineralisation, indicating the mineralised system extends below current drilling depths.
A strong result from YT01 prospect was 36 metres at 0.34% copper, 0.07% nickel, 0.16 g/t palladium and 0.07 g/t gold from 188 metres including 8 metres at 0.56% copper, 0.08% nickel, 0.14g/t palladium and 0.15 g/t gold from 208 metres.
Diamond drilling plans
Empire has designed programs for diamond drilling of the deep copper, nickel and PGM targets.
Drilling contractors have been approached and a favourable schedule appears achievable.
"Diamond core drilling is planned to test the continuity of the mineralisation which is currently open at depth and along strike,” Richardson said.
“Empire remains well funded with a significant investment portfolio and strong cash position.
"Empire’s shareholders can be assured of ongoing exploration across Empire’s entire portfolio of exploration projects.”
Yuinmery Project is 475 kilometres northeast of Perth and comprises six contiguous granted mineral tenements covering about 106.7 square kilometres within the Archaean Youanmi Greenstone Belt.
The project is bounded by the Youanmi shear zone to the west and the Yuinmery shear zone to the east with known copper-gold mineralisation of volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) style.
Empire’s Just Desserts deposit has a previously reported JORC resource of 2.5 million tonnes at 1.31% copper and 0.49 g/t gold.
Pipeline of targets
The company has identified a pipeline of copper, gold, nickel and PGM targets within its southern Yuinmery tenement area.
Multiple drill-ready targets from greenfields-style conceptual anomalies through to more advanced prospects will be tested during future field programs.
The company also has the Barloweerie multi-element precious and base metal project and the Nanadie Copper-Gold Project in the Murchison region and the Penny’s Gold Project near Kalgoorlie in the prolific Eastern Goldfields Region.