LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Empire Metals announced the start of a major exploration campaign at its Pitfield Project in Western Australia on Tuesday, focusing on the high-purity anatase deposit within the weathered surface zone at the Thomas and Cosgrove prospects.
The AIM-traded company said it planned to complete 1,000 metres of diamond core drilling in October to enhance the geological understanding of the zone, which it said held significant economic potential due to its titanium dioxide grade and thickness.

It said the drilling would provide further insights into the shape, grade, and extent of the weathered cap, which contains high-grade titanium dioxide mineralisation to a depth of 76 metres at the Thomas prospect.

The core samples would be used for metallurgical test work aimed at accelerating the mineral processing of the high-purity anatase-rich ore, building on recent progress in this area.

Additionally, Empire said it had strengthened its project development team with the appointment of an experienced geologist who would assist in the exploration and in developing geometallurgical and mineral resource models.

The board said the expanded team and the upcoming drilling were key steps in advancing the Pitfield Project, which had the potential to become an economically-significant titanium dioxide resource.

"I am pleased to announce the commencement of the next round of diamond core drilling, which is concentrated within two centrally located, high-grade target areas, previously identified as the Thomas and Cosgrove prospects," said managing director Shaun Bunn.

"Importantly, this drill campaign is focused on proving up the extent, grade and shape of the concentrated zone of high-purity anatase within the extensive weathered cap and providing further metallurgical samples which is of particular importance to our ongoing, project development plans.

"Furthermore, I am delighted to announce that Tsog Batsaikhan has joined the company as our senior geologist, and he will initially be working alongside our exploration manager, Andrew Faragher, assisting with the supervision of the drill programme."

Bunn described Tsog as a "highly experienced and talented" geologist with more than 15 years of experience across exploration, mining and resource geology.

"Importantly, Tsog has recently completed a master's degree in Metallurgy from the Western Australia School of Mines and his understanding of resource geology and geometallurgy will have a real and immediate impact on the Pitfield project given the current transition from the exploration phase into process flowsheet development."

At 1401 BST, shares in Empire Metals were up 0.7% at 7.2p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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