Member Info for Andii

Https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1042370/empire-metals-delighted-with-new-studies-at-pitfield-titanium-discovery-1042370.html

“With our newly appointed metallurgical team we are ready to successfully execute and expedite the next phase of project development and we will continue to bolster this group with highly talented and experienced titanium industry professionals.

“I look forward to providing further updates on our process development phase over the coming months."

There is also the 4 diamond drills paid for by the Australian government and the 40RC drill program results to look forward to.

Good question and I would love to know the planned capex and capacity of a demonstration plant. Would 100kt output be considered demonstration scale I wonder?

Sovereign minerals stage 1 aims to be 145k/year output for comparison

The demonstration plant will be larger than a pilot plant. I can see this climbing and climbing as the size of the ore body (the two southern high grade targets being drilled right now) are billions of tonnes each -

Let's say 4Billion tonnes total (very conservative) 5% (maybe over 6-7%) TiO2

Therefor then total TiO2 content is 200MillionT.

Each tonne of 95% TiO2 is worth$2000 (99%=$5k)

GGP mineral resource is 131MillionT total

Total gold content is around 8.4millionOz

Each oz is worth $2100

GGP $17b (30% owned so actually $5b)

EEE $400b (70% owned so actually $280b)

Explorers typically worth 2% of in-situ

EEE = $6b (actual market cap today = $70m)

GGP = $100m (actual market cap today $400m)

Look at the rock chip samples tested in November:

Table 1, TiO2 grades between 13 & 21%

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/EEE/extensive-ti-mineralisation-across-giant-system/16206088

I notice in this technical report of the metalurgy results compiled to go along with yesterday's results:

https://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/6096F_1-2024-3-5.pdf

The drill samples they used to test were released in july 2023

The drill is called RC23MTS001, 002 & 003

Here is the RNS with those drill results.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/EEE/high-grade-tio2-over-entire-40km-system-pitfield/16023359

Notice that the grades of TiO2 here are 4.4%, 4.7%, 4.7%

Fast forward to January 2024

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/EEE/extensive-shallow-high-grade-bedded-ti-confirmed-hgm6nvyfhhjlqta.html

o RC23TOM002 intersected 168m @ 6.91% TiO2 from 12m;

o RC23TOM003 intersected 180m @ 6.14% TiO2 from 0m;

o RC23COS004 intersected 154m @ 5.50% TiO2 from 0m; and

o RC23COS005 intersected 148m @ 6.18% TiO2 from 6m.

· It is clear from the results of this RC drilling that the higher-grade mineralisation is found within the more highly altered sandstone beds. The conglomerates and the siltstones are still mineralised, but not to the same extent as the sandstones. This provides a targeting tool for further exploration where previous mapping and rock chip sampling identified high-grade TiO2 mineralisation within sandstones that can be prioritised for the next round of drilling

*******

The metalurgy results came back amazing for 4.2-4.7% zone

They are getting higher grades every drill campaign,

5.5 to 6.9% released in January

Current drill campaign due to compete end of April should return more of the highest grades if not even higher than anything seen previously. And that will be the JORC and mine target. Could we see over 7%?

I wish they would sink a big deep drill down the middle and get the 5km deep high grade result. That would make the headlines

"The scale of the potential titanium deposit looks unlike anything we have seen before with a strike extent of 30 km and a 5km deep keel identified by coincident magnetics and gravimetric geophysical surveys."

I remember when Lovehandles said this on the 11th December

"Sure Andii, "in-theory" they can try and target "target pure TiO2 that sells for $2000/t", which would require EEE to be building a smelter or similar as part of their project - not much change out of $1bn to build one of those...and that's on top of the cost of building a mine."

LH also said that the final product would only be worth $300/t but yesterday we have a route to $5000/t on site confirmed.

Check the RNS again and see the map, HV sub station nearby, water, gas and rail all on the property = massive capex savings.

Gravity separation removes most of the titanite (with 90% recovery) and a simple low acid leaching process concentrates the titanium into 95% product. Not much acid will be required as they already concentrated the material.

I wonder if over time they could gravity separate at the mine face and slurry pump with electric pumps to the processing plant. That would keep costs down.

Of course the project is such high grade, they won't be doing much mining as there is so much titanium in every square meter. Lol

The conceptual processing flowsheet that is being tested consists of beneficiation stages to generate a titanium-rich heavy mineral concentrate and to remove acid-consuming gangue minerals, followed by a simple acid leaching stage, and will therefore not require an energy intensive, on-site smelting process.

Potential On-site High Value TiO2 Products

The final product from the leaching stage is expected to be a fine precipitated powder with a high TiO? concentration, approaching the same content as natural rutile (>95%). However, the material will likely require calcination and pelletisation to make it an attractive, handleable product for customers. Based on Q4 2023 rutile market supply and demand forecasts the price range for rutile is in the order of US$1,880/t to US$2,180/t, reflecting a tightening of the supply chain despite increasing demand over the next decade (Source: Sovereign Metals Ltd. February 2024 Investor Presentation - Prices per TZMI; Ilmenite price: November 2023 FOB Mozambique; Rutile price: "weighted average price for bagged rutile shipments").

The Company could additionally consider a further on-site refinement step for the TiO2 product and make a pigment-quality product for marketing directly to end users, in the manufacture of paints and coatings, plastics and paper. Based on Q4 2022 prices the expected price range for TiO2 pigments is in the order of US$4,340/t to US$5,180/t.

The process is described in the RNS

The quantity of titanite within the tested samples averaged approximately 20% of the rock mass; this level of titanite concentration is extraordinary as titanite is usually an accessory mineral and rarely gets above 1-2% of the rock mass.

Explorative metallurgical investigations have focused mainly on wet gravity separation to beneficiate crushed and ground ore samples before further processing, with around 90% of the heavy minerals such as ilmenite, Ti-oxides and Fe-oxides recovered to the concentrate streams with 84% recovery of the titanite

From Empire's preliminary processing studies, it is anticipated that Pitfield ore will be amenable to conventional leaching under atmospheric conditions to liberate the titanium, not unlike how certain copper ores are recovered by an acid leach-solvent extraction process to liberate copper on site. There is a considerable amount of metallurgical research work that demonstrates the successful leaching of titanite, using low temperature sulphuric acid or hydrochloric acid to dissolve the titanite and liberate the Ti into a liquid phase.

One of the key differences between the processing options being considered for the Pitfield titanite ore and those commonly found in the ilmenite industry is that a low temperature acid leach process is likely all that is needed to extract the titanium and produce a high-quality product. No energy-intensive smelting is required and a higher value product can be produced on-site.

I see you are struggling lovehandles. Try this website to get your url shared

https://www.shorturl.at/

Nobody found more than small traces of tantanite but we found loads. That's why there are no other resources worldwide to compare it to.

Nice linked-in post from yesterday, have included a photo in this tweet

https://twitter.com/AndrewMathieso3/status/1765300281418375174?t=Hia8sB5aXaqP3NiLm2dZVg&s=19

So there is power already on location also.

Checkout out the DFS of other producers in Africa and Madagascar. Its like $200m to build a power plant in the desert. Capex here should be so low.

Imagine a simple acid leach process. Compare it to an at surface high grade copper project. But with very easy from surface simple ore extraction/mining

Agree island girl, but consider the Lassonde curve.

GGP hit £1b market cap three years ago, over 4 or more years away from first production

Today's #EEE proactive video

https://youtu.be/j8xLQuOoKsQ

End product is a 95% synthetic rutile equivalent which sells for $2000 but they are thinking it will be relatively easy to produce a pigment product on site that sells for $4000-5000/t which none of the hard rock or sand miners can even attempt to do.

Here is a science paper on the processing of tantalite. It is usually a byproduct of a few % but 20% of the ore body contains it at Pitfield.

No other tantalum miners in the world have ever found economic grades of tantalite so there's nothing to compare this to.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301751616302125

Https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1042418/empire-metals-reveals-unprecedented-titanium-discovery-at-pitfield-project-1042418.html?viewSource=TwitterUK

4x diamond drills already started last week. Took two months for DD results last time so end of April maybe?

The 40RC drill program will take 10 weeks but I don't know what else it will tell us, another 40 high grade titanium drill results from surface ending in mineralisation at depth etc etc. Maybe it will be enough for a JORC resource by June?

Sovereign metals PFS

https://www.listcorp.com/asx/svm/sovereign-metals-limited/news/kasiya-pre-feasibility-study-results-2931625.html

Same end product, 95% synthetic rutile.

$400/t cost based on a starting grade of 1% TiO2

Drying then electrostatic and magnetic separation process. Sounds like sovereigns main costs will be power.

Page 9. Simple flowsheet to turn tantalum into a synthetic rutile like product >95% which sells for $2000/t

Low energy process, low cost to mine, = high margins.

Cheaper processing than Sovereign minerals and their resource is only 1% grade.

https://wp-empire-metals-2018.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2024/03/EmpireMetals_Presentation-March-2024.pdf

Over what time frame? There's now been confirmed economic extraction and an extra 40 drill results all high grade and the share price is still below the all time high. They also now fully funded (placing was above today's price).

If the share price hadn't have dropped to 8.3p yesterday, would we still be classed as oversold?

I wonder if America will invest anything today, they open soon

User AGEOS

"on 11.06.23, and several times subsequently, i emphasised the unique nature of the pitfield regional-scale mineralogical province, as the context for what is now accepted by the geoscience community as being “a newly recognised type of strata-based sedimentary rock-hosted titanium deposit”. again, as previously stated, there are no comparable deposits anywhere in the world, and unless and until those who claim there are, can provide published data proving otherwise, that remains the case."

I remember when EUA'S resource was valued st $100b and their share price hit $1b

GGP resource was worth $3b and their market cap hit £1b

$57t here and market cap is £50m. Should be £50b or 1000x higher