The Yuinmery copper-gold, PGM-Ni project is situated 475 km northeast of
Perth, WA. It lies within the Archaean Youanmi Greenstone Belt and covers a
synclinal sequence of chloritised felsic tuffaceous rocks, sulphide bearing chert
horizons, gabbro, basalt and ultramafics. The Company is exploring both for
volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) copper-gold deposits in felsic volcanics
and for PGM-nickel mineralization in a large, layered mafic/ultramafic intrusive
complex.
Copper-Gold
Empire Resources holds a 100% interest in a central group of tenements
which contain several occurrences of VMS mineralization including the Just
Desserts prospect where the Company has defined an Inferred and Indicated
resource of 1,070,000 tonnes at 1.82% copper and 0.78g/t gold. It is similar
in nature to orebodies currently being mined at Golden Grove and Jaguar in
Western Australia. Deposits of this style of mineralization commonly occur in
clusters and have been mined to great depths.
Metallurgical testwork indicates high recoveries of gold and copper may be
expected from the treatment of the Just Desserts mineralization.
In September 2010, the Company entered into an option agreement to
purchase an interest in adjoining tenements held by La Mancha Resources
Australia. These tenements are the subject of a joint venture between La
Mancha Resources Australia and Giralia Resources Limited in which La
Mancha has an interest of approximately 80%. This agreement trebled the
area of Empire’s Yuinmery tenement holdings to 227sq km and positions it as
a major landholder in the base metal rich but under-explored Youanmi
Greenstone Belt. Previous exploration on these adjoining tenements, mostly
for gold, located many areas of anomalous copper and gold geochemistry. A
recently completed airborne electromagnetic (EM) geophysical survey also
identified up to 22 previously untested conductive zones considered by Empire
to be prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralization.
Recent RC drilling has intersected massive sulphides at the YC14 and A Zone
prospects returning intersections of 5m @ 0.5% Cu, 1.0 g/t Au and 7m @
2.1% Cu, 0.3 g/t Au respectively. In addition, EM surveys in drillholes at the
YC5, YC11, YC14 and Augustus prospects have identified large off hole
conductors indicative of sulphide mineralization. Further RC drilling is planned
to follow up on these exciting results.
Platinum-Palladium-Nickel
While exploring a copper-nickel soil anomaly coincident with EM and magnetic
anomalies, the Company recently discovered large widths of low grade
platinum – palladium – nickel mineralisation at the Constantine prospect.
Downhole intersections of up to 80m @ 0.49 g/t Pt+Pd and 0.22% Ni are
associated with disseminated sulphide mineralisation in at least two horizons
of a major layered mafic-ultramafic intrusive complex. The magnetic anomaly
associated with the Constantine mineralization can be traced along strike for
at least 13 km.
A trial Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical survey was recently completed
across the Constantine prospect. This survey detected five anomalous zones,
two of which correspond to the zones of PGM mineralization.
Further reconnaissance IP surveys and RAB drilling will shortly be undertaken
along a 5 km strike length of the Constantine magnetic horizon to try and
locate areas with higher PGM and nickel values. Prospecting 3 km south of
Constantine has already located further anomalous PGM, nickel and copper
values in rock chip samples (eg. 0.64 g/t Pt+Pd, 2010 ppm Ni, 3790 ppm Cu).
Preliminary metallurgical testwork has shown the Constantine sulphides are
amenable to simple flotation separation with a 6 times upgrade of Pt + Pd into
10% of the original mass. More detailed flotation testwork is now being
undertaken.
