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Back to the GGP similarities, when you manually normalise the EEE and GGP charts which effectively removes price and timeframe and just looks at the structure, you can see both axis are scaled so you’re comparing where each stock is in their individual cycles rather than what they trade at. When you do that, the similarity is pretty striking as you can see.

GGP’s first discovery run peaked early in its cycle, then sold off hard, as mentioned earlier it spent a long time frustrating holders and building a messy base before the second, more meaningful leg began. Empire has already done the same things, but its initial blow off actually came later in the cycle after more base building, which could point to a healthier structure rather than a weaker one.

Where we sit now lines up with GGP just after the deep retrace and higher-low phase, right before momentum started to rebuild.

The first move was discovery and emotion, the next move “if it comes” for us should be driven by structure and fundamentals rather than hype.

That’s why I believe the comparison is interesting at least. Again, I’m not saying the stocks are the same, just that EEE is past the risky discovery phase and sitting in the same part of the cycle where GGP stopped being speculative and started being inevitable.

Food for thought!

Would love to hear different views on the above, specifically Re; GGP similarities or not if you feel that there are none.

DYOR

Off now to hopefully see Leeds beat Man Utd 🤞🏼

ATB for next week 📈

ML

https://ibb.co/p6G80p2w

https://ibb.co/pD4ppNX

One other area that I think is hugely important and definitely understated is the level of “current” government support and institutional backing already in place. Access to funding mechanisms such as Export Finance Australia is far from trivial and tells us how the project is being viewed at a national and strategic level, likewise the relationship with the CSIRO should not be underestimated, that sort of involvement adds technical credibility, depth of expertise and long term confidence around processing and product development, and it’s not something that gets attached to projects lightly. IMO these ties significantly reduce risk and help bridge the gap between exploration, development and real world commercialisation. The ASX listing is another obvious milestone, it won’t magically solve everything, but broader exposure, better liquidity and access to a market that understands mining and critical materials stories should help us reach a more appropriate audience at just the right time in our development.

If we continue to deliver against stated plans and keep hitting milestones when we say we will, it builds trust and tbh SB & Co. have been superb in this area over the last few years In sure you’ll agree. Consistency is what will allow the market to re-rate Empire in stages rather than constantly resetting expectations. Put all of that together and while nothing is guaranteed, the setup for 2026 looks far more about execution and alignment than discovery ‘24 or hope ‘25, which is exactly where you want a story like ours to be. The next step for myself personally is to sit back, enjoy, and allow the story to play out, if you look back at 2025 which had many ups and downs, different views, opinions, scare tactics, rampers (maybe I’m one I’m not sure?), de-rampers, pretty much every single aspect of a company being traded publicly was witnessed last year, and the fact of the matter is all you had to do was the easiest thing of all, but sometimes it feels the hardest, which was to sit in your hands and do nothing, literally do nothing (apart from buy what I can on every de-risking RNS), that’s exactly what I plan to do for 2026, it worked in all previous years and I have no reason to doubt that particular investment tactic will work extremely well this year too.

CTD…..

What we’ve seen recently is the SP starting to move away from that old range and stay there but as some chartists have been saying, breaking through 40p was key, but what really matters now is that move (So far) into the mid 40s wasn’t instantly sold back into and showed serious strength into the close with some very big after hours trades. For now that tells you the market is starting to get comfortable with the higher prices based on what is already known, not on future promises. The next part is the one that hasn’t really started yet and it’s where these development stories change gear. This is when the market stops asking if Empire has something and starts asking how big it could be. The price movements become quicker, dips get bought faster and valuations quietly reset. With GGP this happened relatively quickly once the penny dropped because gold is a well understood commodity and investors could plug it into familiar models without much hesitation. That’s the key difference I see between the two, gold was easy for the market to grasp so the re-rating was sharper and faster, titanium is not as well understood and we’re talking about something that sits across mining, processing and end use. Because of that I think our re-rating will likely come in stages rather than in one big jump, that said, the direction of travel looks exactly the same even if the pace ends up being different. For me personally, this part of the chart feels much more like the end of the frustrating phase and the start of a very rewarding one. Charts alone won’t deliver outcomes and fundamentals still need to line up with what the market is expecting so for me the key trigger points over the next year are fairly clear. That starts with continued technical and geological progress at Pitfield, building on what is already known and steadily reducing uncertainty and risks, alongside that further work around metallurgy and processing is important, particularly anything that helps clarify how this material can be turned into a high quality, saleable product at scale. Progress on downstream engagement is also pivotal with clear evidence that potential end users are interested, involved and helping shape the product, that would go a long way towards moving the story from theoretical to practical. If SB can demonstrate a credible pathway to development it will help the market start thinking in terms of value rather than possibility.

CTD….

Morning all,

For well over a year, (and the last 24hrs specifically) I’ve been looking closely at GGP (I’m not a shareholder), firstly because it’s one of the standout success stories from 2020 and it’s often referenced for good reason, and as has been mentioned many times not by others, the parallels between GGP and Empire are hard to ignore, not just in terms of the charts but also in the way the SP’s have behaved and the way the market has reacted at different points of both company journeys. Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting this is an exact science or that the two companies are identical or will follow like a carbon copy , they are completely independent businesses with different boards, different management teams, different shareholder bases and, of course, very different commodities, so this isn’t about being simplistic or trying to force a one for one comparison, what I am trying to do is outline some broad similarities in behaviour and progression which I think do have real relevance when you zoom out. I was also really encouraged by GGP’s move to the ASX last year, as many here know I’ve been a big supporter of us joining the ASX for well over two years now, that said, I’m also happy to admit that pushing for an ASX listing a year ago would probably have been too early, at the time I wanted it, but looking back at what still needed to be achieved it makes sense why the company waited, in that context I do think the current timeline for us to list on the ASX this year has the potential to be genuinely transformative. I’m also realistic enough to accept that it doesn’t guarantee success and some people will rightly remain sceptical, but that doesn’t take away from how important that step could be. If you take a step back and look at how the Empire chart has behaved, it’s following a very familiar path for a company that is backed by real fundamentals but is still early in the market’s understanding. The 1st part of that chart is always a bit chaotic, early excitement, big jumps followed by a sharp pullback and plenty of people trying to trade it rather than own it (basically Empire in H2 2025). Empire can be described as having gone through that with the early Pitfield interest where news caused a surge and then a sell off, GGP did the same thing in its early days around Havieron, lots of interest but very little patience. That phase is clearly behind us now and was followed by the “boring” stretch which most people mistake for weakness (Q4 2025), in reality I believe it was just the market slowly changing who owns the shares, price went down, then sideways, volume reduced and nothing exciting seemed to happen for months. We were stuck in the low 30s, tested it over and over but positively it would not break down below that without serious buyers stepping in. GGP had this where it felt like nothing was going to happen which saw a big drop of in the SP (60%).

CTD..

Reposted from August ‘25.

“Looking at Eclipse, we acquired a 75% interest in that project in Feb ‘21, the consideration consisted of A$1m in cash and shares, and we also paid a finder’s fee of A$0.5m, which I had issues with and did say that to Mike Struthers at the time, who I pulled up on it being a hugely excessive amount. However, we move on. We have also spent over A$0.6m via an agreed exploration commitment at Eclipse, so just over $2m in total.

The gold prices at the time were about US $1,850 /Oz, and now they’re close to $3,700 /Oz, so almost a 100% increase over the last 4 years.

If we look at it simply in terms of what we paid and the increase in gold prices over those 4 years, the theoretical value of Eclipse has almost doubled. In other words, assuming we could sell it at current market conditions with the same gold content and exploration potential, Eclipse could potentially fetch close to twice what we invested, purely based on the gold price increase. This doesn’t account for any additional value from the drilling we undertook either, but theoretical, doesn’t always translate to reality.

Regarding that exploration work conducted since the acquisition, we completed a diamond drilling campaign in ‘22 which extended the mineralisation along strike and at depth, confirming the continuity of gold in previously under-explored areas. 5 out of the 6 drill holes had intercepts with up to 4g/t Au, you could argue these results have provided valuable structural and geological data, enhancing the understanding of Eclipse, and potentially increasing the project’s attractiveness to potential buyers? I’m not so sure.

I remember at the time being relatively encouraged with these results, and we should note that the mineralisation remains open along strike and at depth, showing definitive opportunities for further exploration.

I believe a realistic estimate for the current value of Eclipse would be in the range of A$2.5m give or take a half million. That estimate for valuation considers the initial and previous/ongoing investment exploration work and impairment charges.

A cash injection of that amount would be greatfully received, although not a great return on initial investment IMHO.”

———————

Well the theory didn’t translate to reality!

Being straight about it, $750k isn’t a strong return when you look at what Eclipse originally cost and what’s been spent since. It didn’t deliver and that’s just the reality but that particular spend is a sunk cost and shouldn’t dictate today’s strategy. Eclipse was a small gold project in a crowded sector and was never going to be material to valuation IMO. Keeping it would mean more cost, more distraction and uncertain upside. Selling now brings in cash, removes a non-core asset but more importantly it tightens the focus entirely on Pitfield, which is clearly where the real value lies. Not ideal, but sensible and disciplined.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day 👍🏼

Looking at where we are now, it is worth reviewing what 2025 has actually achieved from what 2026 is likely to be about because the 2 years serve very different purposes IMO.

2025 was largely about proof rather than scale. The key takeaway is that Pitfield ore can be upgraded to a very high purity titanium product. That answers the most basic technical question which is whether the chemistry works at all. It does and on that front the risk has been decisively reduced, and contrary to many posters who turned up in ‘24 saying otherwise.

2025 was not about commercial readiness. There did seem at times (imo) to be an assumption by some that once 99.25% purity was achieved, the flowsheet should be finished. In reality purity is only one variable in the process, the main step is that the flowsheet must be repeatable, scalable and economically viable.

The flowsheet development has taken almost a year so far rather than months but that’s all normal and fully expected because it is not a single step, it’s a chain of independent steps where changing even one part of the process often impacts another. For a first of kind titanium system like Pitfield this level of tweaking is perfectly normal but the results so far are very encouraging.

Thats why we haven’t seen any RNS’s about producing hundreds of kilos of product or a bar of titanium. Producing material at scale before the process is fixed just adds cost without reducing risk so in simple terms 2025 has been about answering can this be done at all, which was answered emphatically.

2026 is about answering can this be done consistently at scale and can it produce a product that real customers will buy. SB is adamant and fully confident that he’ll show this clearly to the market and I fully expect the company to achieve the goals.

IMO the first major inflection point I would expect to see is a finalised flowsheet with repeatable results and some disclosure around recoveries. That step alone removes the largest remaining technical risk and historically that tends to support a re-rating from a few hundred million MC into something more like the £400m - £600m range (sub £1) because the project stops being viewed as experimental metallurgy.

The next milestone would be the pilot scale production where we would produce single thousands of kilos of consistent material and physically shipping that product to end users for testing is the point where credibility changes significantly. At that stage the story leaves lab success and small scale talk behind and moves to industrial validation. If that is achieved cleanly it is not unrealistic for the market to justify valuations in the £700m to around £1b range (£1+).

CTD….

Https://www.mining.com/tronox-stock-jumps-on-600m-potential-exim-efa-financing/

The news is very positive for Empire when you look at what it really represents rather than the headline 30% - 40% share price move upwards.

They haven’t discovered anything new, haven’t published a new resource and haven’t completed a DFS, yet they just received letters of support from US EXIM and EFA for $600m to fund downstream rare earth processing in WA. That alone tells us where governments and strategic capital are now focused, and being in WA is exactly the type of news we should all be very happy to see and hear.

The main point is that this new financing allows them to move downstream and capture multiples more value from the same feedstock. That value capture story is exactly what SB has been talking about at Pitfield for the last 6-9 months since the make up of our ore was confirmed.

For me it validates the end game so again, EVERYTHING is pointing to us being on a path to huge opportunities. WA based titanium is now being formally recognised as a strategic supply chain asset, and not just a mining project. The involvement of both US EXIM and EFA under the US/Aus critical minerals framework shows that our jurisdiction, our scale and our longevity will matter more than near-term production timelines, but we’re close to that too!

All the people who were sceptical saying there is processing risks, funding risks and whether our flowsheet is even viable, well Tronox has just demonstrated that not only will our plans be viable, it will actively be encouraged and underwritten by government aligned finance, again which SB & Greg have told us in the latest presentation where they confirmed our current discussions, introductions to end users and all done with very strong relationships. It’s written all over the walls here.

The biggest news for me is that we don’t need funding today to benefit from this update as the money available from WA & outside governments is now proven to exist for projects operating in the same jurisdiction, targeting the same types of feedstock and pursuing the same value add strategy, but with one VERY BIG DIFFERENCE - our project economics will blow all others to pieces! That materially reduces future execution and financing risk yet again, so it’s an easy buy and hold.

It also confirms (IMO) that the real prize is not selling ore or concentrate, but owning more of the value chain and targeting the high value sponge metal. We’re just at an earlier stage and with more optionality, and with that Pitfield offers a serious opportunity to build a bigger stake individually and I speak only for myself, on that matter by continuing to buy with every bit of news that I feel has de-risked the project.

CTD……

It honestly says everything you need to know about Tim Smith’s “analysis” that after a 30 minute presentation covering geology, metallurgy, land access, location, govt support and discussions, likely finished products and overall commercial outlook, the only thing he chose to comment on was the size of Greg’s video window and whether he was smiling enough.

This is the same Tim who keeps insisting nothing is independently verified, who claims the world class appointments “aren’t technically strong,” who says the Tier 1 location “isn’t great,” and who regularly fires out multiple unfounded, unjustified and quite frankly ridiculous remarks that aren’t even worthy of basic scrutiny. To engage with Tim, is utterly pointless and this is my first and will be my last post mentioning him, unfortunately for me LSE has become almost impossible to manage on my phone with being kicked out mid post, logged out and logged in for no apparent reason which sadly forces me to see such rubbish posted from the long list of green box empty heads.

And today, after everything that was covered, his decisive insight was… ……the framing of Greg’s webcam which he would have no control over being an OTCQX platform interview, the same small box shown with every interviewee on all their interviews.

He conveniently ignored the substance, the data, the technicals, the commercial messaging, and instead judged the interview on charisma and screen layout, as if a mining finance director’s job is to be like Ricky Gervais hosting The Oscars. It’s like criticising an F1 driver because he doesn’t give a good post race interview. I want him fast in the car, not smiling on camera (analogy used as I’m watching the F1 build up now), so once he manages the numbers, he can do so smiling or crying, I really don’t care.

It’s an absolutely pathetic takeaway from a 30 minute factual update and perfectly sums up why his posts are taken with absolutely zero credibility, no depth, no understanding, no engagement with the actual project, just pointless, surface level noise dressed up as opinion.

ML

Hi BoW, good question and thanks for the comments Re; my son 👍🏼

So “can Empire go to zero?”

For any company or Empire to go to zero you would need a complete collapse of our geology, metallurgy, land access, funding, or governance. None of those risks are present here IMHO. In fact, everything disclosed over the last 3 years points in the opposite direction.

On metallurgy, nothing in the company’s RNS’s or the lab work suggests we have anything to worry about. SB has repeatedly said the metallurgy is favourable and that the route to high purity titanium products is already in progress using known and conventional processes. If there were serious metallurgical problems, you would see clues in interviews, RNS data, or delays in our work, not the fast-track progress we have seen so far. Over the years, I’ve seen many “anonymous” posters spotting “fatal flaws” surprisingly missed by the consultants, labs, JV partner, WA mining community and all our highly experienced and expert employees, all of which turned out to be completely unfounded and ridiculous. That reminds me, I’m still waiting on those guys to come back and post, maybe they lost their login details, who knows 🤷🏻‍♂️

On the geology, we have 3 years of drilling with consistent mineralisation across the entire tenement, consistent and high grades, and no failed drill intercepts ANYWHERE. You don’t progress to an MRE if the fundamentals are in anyway shaky. In fact, the story has strengthened and de-risked with each drill program completed.

Land access is almost a non-issue. It’s freehold farmland with supportive landowners, not Aboriginal title land. Empires relationship with the local community and council is extremely strong. SB has openly said land access is not expected to present obstacles in any manner.

A funding risk is unrealistic too. Even in a mining or market downturn, Pitfield will attract strategic interest, farm-ins, II support, or govt funding. The world’s largest titanium find in WA is not going to vanish, and at worst we will get dilution (acceptable with Pitfield progress and MC increase), certainly not a wipeout.

There is no sign of governance issues, financial irregularities so no different to any company trading anywhere today.

IMHO, if you add all the above together, of course anything can happen, but Empire going to zero looks like a 1% risk. The far more likely outcome over 2026 is continued derisking through the updating of the MRE, metallurgy updates, drilling, and product marketing as discussed by SB and GK last week.

Tbh, forums will always throw up worst case scenarios which personally I have no issue with, once it is accompanied with factual data and information but that never happens, nothing in the current data, RNS history, interviews or technical progress suggests any credible risk to zero here. The risks are 100% normal exploration risks, not existential ones.

DYOR

ML

Having listened to the interview while out walking, this morning, there were certainly a few nuggets added and with last weeks interview, it can be summarised with some key takeaways.

Pitfield confirmed as one of the world’s largest titanium discoveries: 2.2bt @ 5% TiO2, covering less than 20% of the known system.

Weathered cap contains pure anatase/rutile with no ilmenite or deleterious elements, free digging, ultra low cost mining.

Mineralisation starts at surface, drilled to 400m+, with geophysics suggesting depth potential of several kms.

Metallurgy already produced 92% TiO2 concentrate and was easily upgraded to 99.25% purity pigment using simple, conventional processing.

High recoveries (98% dissolution) and low acid consumption thanks to very low iron content.

On marketing and end users there was a clear step forward IMO. Greg said a lot of potential customers have already asked for samples. That’s big news. We have already taken almost 100t of bulk ore which is feeding the current bench scale testwork, and the plan is to have multi kilo samples (up to around 10kg each) ready in Q1 to send to pigment producers and titanium metal end users for their own testwork. Early feedback from spec sheets is that the lack of deleterious elements is a big positive.

Upcoming drilling focused on upgrading large parts of the resource to indicated/measured using cheap AC drilling in Q1.

Exceptional infrastructure, major highway access, rail through the licence, port proximity, gas pipeline, water, renewables.

Very strong local support from farmers, community and both state and federal Australian government bodies.

Extremely strong Australian government engagement specifically related to the United States, including direct introductions and strategic discussions driven by the U.S. having no domestic titanium metal supply, positioning Pitfield as a potential long term U.S. strategic feedstock (Very interesting remark in Greg’s interview).

Finally, on execution he stressed they are “fully funded” for this next development phase. One useful nuance is that, because we’re in WA with world class mining infrastructure and engineering houses on the doorstep, they don’t need to build their own pilot plant from scratch, they can run pilot scale work through existing facilities in Perth, which should speed things up and keep the cost of the pilot phase down.

ASX dual listing still planned to attract larger institutions.

Non core assets (Walton, Eclipse) to be sold or spun out, sole focus is Pitfield.

Key drivers ahead, metallurgy optimisation, pilot testing, resource upgrades, and deepening offtake/end-user engagements.

Definitely worth a listen as he got into detail that they previously were tight lipped about. I think the US will play a part in some upcoming RNS in the next 3-12 months.

Anyway, all good and they seem very confident as to what’s ahead and what can be achieved.

ML

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