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Hi Cev,

I know it’s difficult but In the interest of this forum having company related information at the forefront, could I ask you to ignore this member and avoid creating more green boxes for the rest of us please.

Already a post that took me a few hours to research, draft, format and post is now 6 posts down with zero Empire related replies.

This is to all who engage with members who are here only to disrupt.

Thank you Cev et all.

ML

Since that 2024 period, we’ve seen a steady stream of highly experienced professionals leave established positions within major mining companies to join Empire. These are specialists in exactly the disciplines required to move a project from discovery through development and ultimately towards production. IMHO you don’t walk away from successful careers and established reputations in international companies on a whim. It doesn’t happen in my industry so I just can’t see it happening in the mining industry.

One would also expect that these college educated experts would perform their own due diligence, assess the opportunity and make a judgement on where they believe the project is heading. Am I wrong here or is that just common sense?

The same applies beyond the employees we have attracted this last 36 months. Look at the CSIRO, Curtin University, Snowden Optiro and the Critical Minerals Associations (UK / Aus), and the invitation to join an Aussie govt CM trade delegation to North America, they are not relationships that happen by accident. IMO organisations of that calibre have their own standards, their own reputations to protect and their own due diligence processes so again you’d have to assume, in fact I hope to God that they have been digging into who we are, what we do, who are the leaders of the company are and do they want to link up with us.

The fact they did decide that we were worth partnering with (wrong phrase but can’t think of the right one) says a lot to me about Empires overall reputation.

If I take my rose tinted goggles off and look at the growing list of respected technical experts, industry veterans, govt backed orgs and corporate partners who have chosen to become involved, it tells me we’re turning into a very serious and highly professional operation, one viewed with significant peer respect and admiration for what’s been created here in 48 months.

Anyway, enough now, I don’t want people thinking I’m ramping 😜

https://ibb.co/VY2K1Brj

ML

Ok that’s my Empire catch up done for the weekend. I was stuck in month end reporting last week so never got the chance to review Zeus Capital and compare to Cannacord and whether Shard are still involved or not.

I spent about 30 minutes on each website and while I appreciate that this exercise is little more than standing outside all 3 shops and looking through the front window, I thought I would share a few of my observations.

I’ll caveat this by saying from the outside we can’t see the most important areas such as quality of service, the relationships, the distribution power, the investor introductions, the value for money or the results delivered behind closed doors. Only SB and the board will know those details or have a good idea anyway.

So purely based on what each company chooses to present to the market, I came away with 3 very different impressions.

Shard as I expected (given I was a former client) looked like a traditional boutique city broker. Strong private client focus, wealth management, stockbroking and smaller company relationships.

Zeus definitely feels and looks more like a capital markets growth business. Corporate finance, II’s, research, and generally helping companies move through the next stage of their development. The main page shows latest IPO’s and funding details. I note they generated £30m of the £43m for TUN recently. Any TUN holders might have more thoughts on them with more knowledge than I do on the topic.

Canaccord appears to operate on an entirely different scale altogether. Looking through their mining and metals division, it is immediately obvious why they were brought onboard by Empire and I think it’s a very good thing that they were willing to take us also. Their business is heavily geared towards mining, natural resources, development projects, institutional capital and most importantly, Aussie focused.

The most interesting question is whether Zeus is better suited to where Empire is today than Shard were? Have they been canned? No idea. Will they still be a part of Empire in any way? No idea. Couldn’t offer any additional thoughts on that.

If you think back to 2024 and what type of company we were back then, it was a discovery play, now we’re a full scale development story and it’s not hard to see why Canaccord were brought in, and I can also understand why Zeus may now have a role to play.

Ultimately, the quality of 3 websites won’t determine if we build a mine, confirm mineral reserves or generate shareholder reward for us but what I keep coming back to is the calibre of people and organisations that continue to attach themselves to Empire.

CTD….

However, I believe the real value inflection point sits beyond both of those events. The flow sheet, pilot scale production, repeatable product quality and ultimately engagement with end users. SB has spoken previously about getting Michael Tamlin and the team in front of potential customers as early as possible, and I can completely understand why.

At the end of the day, resources in the ground have value but a proven process producing a consistent high grade product has even more value, more-so a proven process producing a consistent high grade product with end user interest, offtake discussions with commercial validation is where things will start to become very interesting IMHO.

For me, that is where the next phase of Pitfield’s share price discovery begins. First base was 4p, then 10p to 12p and now 30p to 35p.

We seem to achieving a 200% base level increase at every news inflection point. Is £1 the next base level? Maybe!

None of this guarantees success, of course. Every development project carries an element of risk and there is still plenty of work to do here but when I look at where we were 36 months ago, compared to 24 months ago and then compared to where we are today, I see a company steadily de-risking the project, ticking off milestones and moving further down the value chain.

We are well past proving we have titanium bearing minerals and scale at Pitfield. The next chapter is proving that it can be processed, scaled, marketed and ultimately sold to real world industrial buyers and into industrial applications. If we continue to execute against those objectives, I would hope and expect the market will eventually have no choice but to assign a value that reflects that progress bringing up between £0.5b and £1b.

Any reasonable calculations and conservative value mechanisms lead me in just one direction, and that’s well north of current MC.

DYOR

ML

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/factory-visit-guide-auditing-coating-ndj2c?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

I came across an interesting LinkedIn article today from a company involved in the titanium dioxide pigment industry. It’s essentially a guide for auditing and assessing TiO2 suppliers, particularly in China, and a few things caught my eye.

Firstly, like we have, high grades absolutely matter across all orebodies because a higher grade deposit means less ore needs to be mined, moved and processed to produce the same amount of TiO2, which has a significant implication on costs and project economics. I’m not suggesting grade is irrelevant, far from it but what I found interesting,l was that the article barely discussed the grade % at all.

Instead, the focus was entirely on product quality, consistency, traceability, supply security, environmental standards and the ability to deliver the same specification over and over.

Somewhat surprisingly the paint, coatings and pigment manufacturers are not that interested in how many drill holes have encountered mineralisation and how high the grade is, they appear to want certain specifics like brightness, purity, particle size control, batch consistency and confidence that the supply will still be there decades from now.

That is why I continue to view Empire’s metallurgical work as being every bit as important as the drilling, potentially more important. The drilling has already told us what’s in the ground but the metallurgy will tell us if we can turn it into something customers actually want to buy.

To me, the significance of the 99.25% TiO2 lab product result is high and the continued metallurgical work is another step towards demonstrating that Pitfield has the potential to become a long term, large scale, reliable source of titanium feedstock from a secure Aussie jurisdiction.

The more I read material aimed at end users, the more I am convinced that consistency, scalability and product quality will ultimately drive value just as much as grade.

Looking ahead, the MRE remains an obvious catalyst and the key things I will be looking for are the overall size of the resource, the level of confidence achieved, confirmation of continuity, the scale of the mineralised footprint captured within the estimate and, perhaps most importantly, what it tells us about the future growth potential beyond the initial resource area. I personally don’t see this being a next level SP unlocking update, but another very important brick in the Empire wall.

The ASX listing is another important piece of the puzzle. Not because it changes the project overnight, but because it opens the door to a significantly larger pool of investors, analysts and II’s who currently have limited or no access to Empire. If Pitfield is to become a globally recognised titanium project, it makes sense that it should ultimately have a meaningful Aussie shareholder base.

CTD

Thanks for the section you just shared Fortissimo.

I think there is a subtle but very important difference between what the RNS says and the conclusion you’re drawing from it.

The company didn’t say the western margin returned poor results or that drilling was halted because the grades weren’t good enough. What they said was that unmineralised basement was encountered closer to surface than expected and, as a result, some holes were deemed unnecessary.

So the drill team finally found Pitfields geological boundary sooner than previously anticipated. As I said yesterday, one of the key objectives of a drilling programme isn’t just to establish where mineralisation exists, it’s also to establish where it doesn’t. Both pieces of information are required when defining a resource.

In my eyes, the wording reads more like, “we now understand the western boundary better than expected, therefore some planned holes no longer added value.”

That’s very different to, “we drilled it, didn’t like what we saw, and stopped.”

The drill team concluded that they had reached the edge of the mineralised system on the western side, and with that any additional holes drilled in that direction would add zero value. In that context, drilling fewer holes than originally planned is not a bad thing for me, as the geology answered the question earlier than expected. It does go to show though that the same words printed are disseminated in completely different ways by different people. I see it as we have finally defined one of the boundaries after kilometres upon kilometres of mineralisation, whereas you appear to see it as the grades were bad, no titanium in that hole and the project doesn’t look as strong as it previously did. I jest, but you get the point.

The irony here is that Snowden Optiro have to know where the mineralisation ends as the resource modelling cannot be completed without boundary confirmation. Every hole that helps define the edge of the system improves confidence in the geological model and reduces the need to spend additional money on proving something that has already been established.

It’s worth noting that we cited seasonal access restrictions during crop seeding in the very same sentence. The shortfall wasn’t attributed to geology in any way so that’s a non issue for me again.

If the company was concerned that the western margin had somehow invalidated the drilling data, we would expect to see very different wording but what I saw was a programme that delivered 712 holes and 35,000m of drilling, whilst simultaneously refining the geological model with new information. That’s exactly what an exploration campaign is supposed to do but again maybe I’m wrong and should be looking for faults.

CTD….

Hi Fortissimo,

Firstly, and just to be clear, I do not see anything bearish in your post whatsoever. We are simply looking at the same data through different eyes , which is exactly what this forum should be for.

I only speak for myself but I don’t think many of us are expecting every hole to come back at 7%+ TiO2. In a system of this scale there will naturally be stronger and weaker areas, and defining those areas is an important part of understanding what we have.

Where I'm struggling to understand is your comment that drilling was ended early because of lower mineralisation? I must have missed that as I don’t remember seeing the company having said that. Do you have a link to something?

What I do know they have said is that the objectives of the programme were achieved and the drilling campaign was completed. Unless I’m mistaken, which is entirely possible I don’t think that’s what happened.

One thing thats sometimes overlooked is that drilling programmes such as this are not just about what we find, they are also about what we do not find. Defining the edges of mineralisation, identifying weaker areas and understanding where the boundaries of the higher-grade zones sit is every bit as important. In many respects, a hole returning 1% can be just as valuable to the geological model as a hole returning 10% TiO2 because it helps define the shape and limits of the system. What’s considered a “bad” grade at Pitfield is actually the industry standard grade, I think we forget that sometimes.

If every hole was coming back at 10% and extending indefinitely, Wallace Drilling would probably still be out there plugging holes beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At some point the objective changes from proving mineralisation exists to understanding its extent, continuity, geometry and ultimately how it can be developed. That point is now or coming soon.

We have now drilled over 700 holes across Pitfield and we 100% know titanium mineralisation exists, that continuity exists, both demonstrated repeatedly. The focus now becomes how much of that mineralisation can be converted into indicated & measured categories, where the highest grade zones sit within the overall system and what that means for the economics.

On the MRE timing, I understand the point regarding market attention, but at no stage would I want to see Snowdon Optiro rush anything and fail to produce the most robust resource possible. We are trying to define what could become a globally significant titanium project, not time announcements around whether a handful of PI’s are sitting by the pool in Benidorm deciding where this Fridays Chinese takeaway money is going. If the resource is significant enough, institutions, strategic partners and the market will recognise it whenever it lands. From everything I’m told next results will be June with MRE to follow July, but of course possible for August as this is mining.

CTD…

One aspect of today’s RNS that caught my attention wasn’t the appointment of Zeus itself, but the omission of Shard Capital from the broker line up. Did anyone notice that?

If you look at the Cannacord broker RNS, we specifically had S.P. Angel as Nomad and broker, alongside Shard Capital in the line up. Today’s wording specifically references Zeus working alongside Canaccord and S.P. Angel, with no mention of Shard.

That may be an administrative error, but I’d think it’s more likely that they have been released as an official adviser and broker. They played their part successfully in the £5m to £50m MC area but I’m not disappointed in them not being listed as many of their clients are not of the ilk you would like holding shares in your company, most of which have owned Empire at some stage only to move on to chase another rainbow elsewhere. For clarity, I was a client, took part in early funding rounds, but closed my account with them for reasons above. Are there excellent clients in Shard too and are most of their employees very professional? Yes absolutely and I’m familiar with one in particular who I found excellent at his job. Greg Watson for those that know him. Very good individual and highly knowledgeable.

Looking at Zeus itself, they are certainly not a small operation. They have over 120 retained corporate clients, many of which were gathered by expanding their footprint in 2024 through the acquisition of the majority of WH Ireland's capital markets division. That brought additional corporate clients, brokers, advisers, institutional relationships and more AIM market coverage. They are a level above and have raised in excess of £5b of capital for companies across a range of sectors. Their strength is clearly II distribution, wealth management and capital markets annd they are particularly well connected across UK institutions and private wealth networks.

Comparing that with our existing brokers, S.P. Angel bring mining expertise and have been with us from day 1.

Canaccord bring global mining reach across London, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney and Melbourne, which becomes increasingly relevant given the proposed ASX listing and the international nature of the titanium opportunity.

Zeus appears to complement rather than duplicate those capabilities, giving us another route into II’s and generally more visibility.

What interests me is the timing. We are no longer a £20m explorer trying to prove a discovery, we’re sitting on a 2.2bt MRE (will go to 5bt) within a total of 26bt - 32bt target, we have demonstrated a 99.25% TiO2 product, pilot scale work is advancing, engineering studies are underway and the company now has approximately £14.5m in cash.

At 36p and roughly 738m shares in issue, we are valued at around £260m and that’s is a very different proposition to the company that first engaged many of us in single digit SP and single millions MC.

CTD…..

Hi Fortissimo,

I’d have to disagree with the suggestion that a lack of assay results by the end of June would indicate they are somehow not noteworthy.

What assay results are we expecting not to be noteworthy?

Since the discovery of Pitfield, Empire has drilled tens of thousands of metres across two main prospects, and every single hole has intersected titanium mineralisation. Not some holes, not most holes, not the majority of holes, EVERY SINGLE HOLE!. At this stage, the consistency of the system is unbelievably extraordinary. A unicorn you could say, or exactly what SB said.

The mineralogy is not up for debate, nor is the metallurgy. We know the titanium bearing minerals are there, we know they are widespread, and we know they can be easily upgraded into high purity TiO2 product using standard industry processing. The debate is now around scale, continuity, confidence categories and how much larger the resource becomes. SB expects double, I’m going with 5bt @5.5% to 6% which would be phenomenal.

I’d argue the odds are now overwhelmingly in favour of the results meeting or exceeding expectations rather than disappointing. The chances of suddenly finding a series of duster holes after everything drilled to date would be statistically and geologically 99% impossible.

That’s why I’m not expecting the MRE upgrade to create a huge SP reaction. Pitfield has already demonstrated what it is and the market knows it’s there, the market knows it’s enormous, and knows it’s remarkably consistent. The MRE will simply outline more of that consistency, along with some other important data. We’ve literally being blessed with such positive news flow for 2 years that it’s almost taken for granted what we’re achieving here.

As for holding results back until Sept / Oct, I don’t buy that argument either as if the remaining assay results are market sensitive (which they are) they need to be released. Can companies manage the timing of a drilling RNS within reason? Of course they can but anyone who has followed SB for any length of time knows that’s not how he operates. If results are ready and reportable, they’ll be released.

Personally, I’m firmly of the view that we’ll see further results in June, I’m certain we will. Whether the market chooses to react strongly is another matter entirely, but I don’t buy into the theory that a delay into late June somehow means the results aren’t good enough to stand on their own merits.

The only way these assays return bad results is if the Wallis Drill rigs somehow managed to drill the wrong area of WA. I know, impossible right.

GL

ML

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