Last checked at 
(Sharecast News) - Empire Metals announced on Thursday that its maiden drill programme would begin by 31 March at the Pitfield Copper Project in Western Australia.
The AIM-traded firm said a total of 3,100 metres of reverse circulation drilling was planned.
It said the drilling campaign would focus primarily on the Mt Scratch prospect area of the licence, where the company had identified an extensive, highly chargeable-highly resistive anomaly.
The anomaly was identified during the recent Dipole-Dipole Induced Polarisation surveys, which suggested the presence of large, disseminated sulphide mineralised zones.
Empire said the maiden drill campaign would consist of 20 RC drill holes covering a total of 3,100 metres, with an average downhole depth of around 150 metres.
The company was aiming to explore the potential of Pitfield, which had demonstrated strong potential to be a newly discovered 'Giant' copper province.
"I am pleased to announce the confirmation of a commencement date for our maiden, reconnaissance drilling campaign at Pitfield which follows on from the success of the company's recent DD-IP surveying and geochemical mapping activities," said managing director Shaun Bunn.
"The objective of this maiden drill programme is to better understand the geology and to determine the significance of the highly chargeable-highly resistive zones identified from the DD-IP survey results.
"We are also continuing with our soil sampling and DD-IP surveying activities over the coming months to identify additional drill targets at Pitfield and will be looking to commence a second drilling campaign once we have had the opportunity to interpret the results from this reconnaissance mission."
At 1528 GMT, shares in Empire Metals were up 0.02% at 2.08p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
