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Hi Rooters,

I tend to agree with your view.

I’d rather be slightly conservative and be pleasantly surprised with confirmation of commerciality. This is AIM of course and I’m here too long to consider anything a done deal. However, all data and information given by SB points to a very high chance of success going from lab scale to commercial scale.

If you strip everything back to what shareholders should be looking to achieve over the next 6–12 months, there are 3 main things we should be focusing on in terms of the pilot phase.

Firstly, it’s the consistency of grade. IMO, the real value unlock is proving that the high grade mineralisation at Thomas & Cosgrove is continuous and predictable across both areas. If we can demonstrate repeatable grade distribution across a much larger footprint (the current drill campaign getting us to majority measured & indicated) that feeds directly into mine planning, strip ratios and overall project confidence. Based on what we’ve seen so far, this looks like it is the most robust of targets that will be achieved.

Secondly, it’s the consistency of recoveries. Lab results are one thing and yes they have been superb to date, but the step change now is proving that those circa 70% recoveries (or better) can be achieved consistently in a continuous piloting environment. This is absolutely critical because recovery drives how much saleable product we will get from the ore. Even small improvements here will have a massive impact on Pitfield economics, and equally, any drop-off needs to be understood early.

Finally, the flowsheet simplicity and scalability which is probably the most under-appreciated one. The fact SB talking about rejecting up to 80% of waste via flotation before leaching, and then using low temperature atmospheric acid leaching, is a huge advantage. If that holds up at scale, it means lower acid consumption, lower capex, lower opex and a much cleaner path to commercialisation. Simple flowsheets tend to get financed and complex ones don’t. I know which one I’m glad we have.

Put those 3 areas together and we move to something that can actually be built, financed and operated at scale.

That’s the real transition we’re in now and only time will tell. SB has been bang on this last 3 years, and I’m not about to start doubting his ability or that of the team of experts Empire have gathered in the last 24 months.

Exciting times ahead for sure.

https://www.research-tree.com/newsfeed/article/empire-metals-ltd-pitfield-project-development-update-3151007

ML

On the recovery side specifically, just to clear up a common misconception (one which I initially made when I was again making assumptions) was that lab results are not a ceiling in terms of %’s. Apparently it’s quite normal to see recoveries dip initially during the pilot phase due to variability and system inefficiencies, but then improve again as the circuit is optimised. In a lot of cases, recoveries at commercial scale can exceed lab results once recycle streams and process tuning are fully implemented.

So the question isn’t really “will recovery drop?” it’s whether the system can be controlled and optimised at scale. If it can, then the current lab results are not the limit, they’re just the starting point. At 70% recovery, we could drop to 60% for example and with tuning and optimisation we could achieve 75% - 80% after pilot into full production.

For me, the risk now is almost entirely process related, not geological, that’s in the bag hence the current drilling to expand it further and not funding as I’m confident the project will have multiple sources of finance. The good thing is that the risks here are known and generic industry risks, scale up, variability, circuit optimisation, they are not “unknowns”.

At £215m today, the market is pricing our potential.

Over the next 6–12 months, the market will price proof.

If piloting delivers what it looks like it could, then £1bn is not a stretch target, it’s just the next logical stage of rerating from what I can see.

Throw in an ASX listing, increased daily volumes, expert mining fund managers, and a savvy Aussie mining investor base, well you could argue that what we’re about to see with continuous piloting is effectively the lighting of the touchpaper.

Up to now, everything has been building towards this point, the resource, the metallurgy, the flowsheet development. But none of it really counts in market terms until it’s proven as a continuous, scalable system.

If piloting confirms that the process holds together at scale, then the reaction from the market could be quite sharp because we’re removing the single biggest uncertainty in the story.

From there, it’s not about proving if it works, it’s about how big it can become and how quickly it can be funded and developed. Then the Aussie govt would have to get involved one would think, again I just can’t see them walking away from the worlds largest titanium resource, which has been proved commercially viable and financially rewarding.

Can the commercial viability fail? Yes it can, but based on what we know I’d put a 70% - 75% success chance if I was pushed on it now. If it were 100%, you wouldn’t have a buying opportunity at 30p, which I still feel is grossly undervalued for where we stand today but that just me.

DYOR

ML

I had 2 shareholders ask me today, what the realistic mid-term valuation could be. I’ve just messaged them back with a far shorter reply but have expanded on it here. I tried to map it out logically based on where we are today vs what I believe needs to be proven to the market. All my basic assumptions and as I’m not a mining financier, take it with a pinch of salt.

Right now we’re sitting around a £214m MC. At this level, I feel the market is still largely pricing in geology and a degree of processing potential, but it’s not yet pricing in a proven, scalable system or commercial validation which is what SB & Co are working on now.

The key point is that we are moving out of lab conditions and into continuous piloting with an initial 10,000 tonne target (from S&P article, not a company RNS). That is the single biggest inflection point in the entire development curve because it’s where all the theory we’ve been listening to for 24 months becomes real.

If piloting confirms what we’ve already seen at lab level, a high purity product, with strong recoveries, and a relatively simple flowsheet, then we should move from an “exciting story with huge potential” valuation, to a “demonstrated commercial process” valuation. That alone IMHO is what takes us from £220m into roughly £350m - £500m range. 3-6 months at a guess.

From there, the next step is market validation. Bulk samples, end-user engagement, even early stage offtake discussions. I don’t even think we would need a binding agreement at this stage, we just need credible external confirmation that the product is usable and desirable. I’d expect us to expand again at that point, and we start pushing into the £500m - £700m range. 6-9 months at a guess.

The big one then is the PFS. That’s where hopefully everything comes together for shareholders, recovery, capex, opex, scalability. If the flowsheet really is as simple and efficient as SB suggests, and if costs come in competitively, that’s when the market starts pricing us as a genuine future producer rather than a developer. That’s the point where £700m - £1bn becomes very realistic and when I say realistic, by every metric, resource, grade, location, ti02 annual consumption increases & vs all peer competition and comparisons I just can’t see how it wouldn’t be £1b+. (2027 at some point, I really don’t know what quarter to suggest but maybe Q3/Q4).

CTD….

Ageos was on the mark!

It’s now confirmed we are moving into continuous piloting in Q2 that pits us into something that starts to replicate real world, scalable processing. We’ve already proved the chemistry works, we are now going to prove it works consistently and continuously, which IMO is what the market needs to see before assigning proper value.

The key here is the low-temperature, atmospheric leaching route. SB has told us many times it’s simple & that we’re not using traditional sulfate or chloride processes, both of which are energy intensive, costly and environmentally heavy. Instead, we are applying simple but established chemistry to an ore that responds extremely well to it. That is where the potential step change sits in both cost and environmental footprint, both of which have significant impact on capex & opex.

With our 99.25% purity TiO2 from test work, we’re demonstrating a pathway to pigment grade product and even titanium metal feedstock with ongoing upgrading. That opens both the pigment market, a circa $24bn global market, and potential metal partnerships / offtakes.

The scale is enormous @.2.2bt at 5.1% TiO2 for 113mt contained, but the real advantage is the nature of the ore. Higher in-situ grade versus typical mineral sands, free digging, easy strip, minimal waste, infrastructure in tier 1 WA all feed directly into cost advantages.

SB’s comparison with ilmenite is key, and probably why he has been banging on about it for years now. Most of the market relies on material that is difficult to process but Pitfield is fundamentally different in that perspective. If atmospheric leaching continues to perform (and it should) we are looking at a structurally lower cost and cleaner route to the same end product.

Timeline wise this is also very clear. Continuous piloting targeted for Q2 2026, initial runs and product by mid-year, with trial parcels up to 10,000t (huge starting volumes) to engage end users. If successful over the following 3–6 months, we move into feasibility studies and that’s where there’s no turning back!

That is the de-risking pathway we had all hoped for being validated by a significant external party. We are now firmly moving from geology into processing and commercial validation so it gets exciting from here and this is exactly why he pushed against the Lassonde Curve narrative earlier this year.

Ignore the noise & listen to the experts!

ML

Https://ibb.co/FkX5zpN1

https://ibb.co/84nKm7JQ

https://ibb.co/zhQCknt9

Just sharing a quick update from a poll over the weekend with close to 100 Empire shareholders taking part. The results are actually quite telling when you look at both questions side by side.

On the preferred route, the largest group (38%) would like to see the company go it alone with government support towards production. That shows there is still a strong belief in the scale and quality of Pitfield and a willingness from shareholders to see maximum long-term value extracted rather than taking an early exit. That said, when you combine all partnership-related options (JV with a major, strategic investment, and hybrid routes), they collectively represent a clear majority, which tells you that while independence is appealing, most investors recognise the practical benefits of bringing in a partner at some stage.

The second poll, which focuses on what people think is most likely rather than what they prefer, shifts the picture quite a bit. The leading outcome here is a JV with a major at 28%, followed closely by going it alone (21%) and hybrid JV to buyout (19%), with a straight pre-DFS buyout at 20%. This is a much more balanced spread and suggests shareholders are being realistic about how projects of this scale typically evolve.

The key takeaway for me is the gap between preference and expectation. Shareholders ideally want Empire to retain maximum exposure to the upside, but in reality they expect some form of partnership to emerge as the project advances. A full early buyout is not the dominant view, which suggests most Empire investors believe there is still significant value to be unlocked through further de-risking, whether that is through DFS, pilot work which was brilliantly updated earlier by Ageos (thank you again) or initial development of Pitfield.

Overall sentiment looks very constructive. There is confidence in the asset, openness to strategic involvement from majors, and a general expectation that the most likely path is a staged approach rather than a single defining transaction in the near term.

Good to get insights and feel free to add your thoughts on the poll.

ATB

ML

In Q2 we should expect continued resource growth and, importantly, more confidence in how this could actually be mined.

On the studies side, we’re moving into scoping and then into more detailed work which has already de-risked Pitfield significantly but step by step. Each stage in the next 6 months will bring more clarity on our costs, our recoveries and ultimately our project economics. That IMO is what II’s and the federal government will be waiting for.

The last month (Iran) has only cemented Pitfield as a future western supply solution in a tightening and demand growth titanium market. There is an increasing scarcity of high-grade, easy strip, low contamination Ti02 from a tier 1 jurisdiction which should boost our potential for future offtake, funding and strategic partnerships.

So if you map the next 6–12 months, near term, ongoing assay results and confirmation of scale and grade across a larger portion of Thomas / Cosgrove and outer areas.

Short term, piloting outputs and confirmation that the simplified flowsheet holds up at commercial scale, along with actual product confirmation.

Mid term, engagement with potential customers using those products, which will define where our real value sits.

Running in parallel, a huge drilling campaign expanding the overall resource (it’s already monumental in size) and feeding that data into mine planning and product optionality.

All of that feeds ultimately feeds into the bigger picture, which SB has said many times is about Pitfield being positioned as a future strategic supplier into a constrained and geopolitically sensitive market.

If we can execute those steps, the transition over the next 12 months from a large, interesting discovery into something that is then a credible, financeable development story should play out for us. That is the inflection point the market I believe is now waiting on.

2026 will tell us almost everything we need to know.

If it’s positive, this company IMHO will turn into a $1b+ company in the years to follow, and all you need to do is NOTHING! Just sit back and watch it unfold. We’re not there yet of course but the potential is certainly evident.

Enjoy the Easter break.

DYOR

ML

We’ve all wanted to see end-product and he also said we’ll be producing actual titanium pigment products and variants of the product to offer optionality in our target market which is still TBC.

That leads me into what I think is one of the most important but underappreciated points since it was RNS’d. The appointment of Michael Tamlin as “marketing manager” isn’t about marketing in the traditional sense. Given his CV, he was a pure downstream, product-focused hire with real experience from Neometals, and it tells me we’re focused on customers and their requirements along with commercialisation of the business he represents.

As we’ve seen all across AIM, juniors drill, publish results and then worry about buyers years down the line. Our team are doing the complete opposite by thinking about product, customers and how Pitfield material fits into real-world use cases. This isn’t like a copper play where you dig it up and sell it. Ti02 and sponge metal is specification driven, process-driven and customer-driven. We need to understand exactly what our potential end users want and when we know, build our flowsheet around those specifications.

That’s why what SB said about getting the Michael out to end users early is so important. It means we’re not developing this in isolation, rather shaping the product with the market in mind from the start.

MT is likely planning multiple customer meetings to test the real demand, real pricing, and identifying where the premium end of the market sits for us. Pigment is the vast majority of the market, but the high value product, whilst smaller in volume, is where the real margin opportunity could exist for us. That is where any valuation gap can start to close very quickly if executed properly.

Alongside that, we have the RC drilling of another 50-60% of our licence area (started in Feb, finishing in in April) with results soon after. It’s a huge programme aimed at a robust mine plan. That tells us we are already thinking about mine design scenarios, not just resource definition. I would expect the BoD know far more than can be communicated yet, all pointing to us going from explorer to producer.

CTD…….

Https://youtu.be/Bz0lY9DVYcc

Whilst it’s relatively quiet and as it’s been exactly 9 weeks since this interview was published it might be an idea to consider what is likely to happen over the next 6-12 months, IMO it’s very clear what the market and shareholders should be watching and why.

The first big shift is that we are no longer just talking about geology. SB was very clearly moving the narrative into processing, economics and market positioning. When he said grade, recovery and flow sheet simplicity are all fundamental, that’s fairly standard, but the real signal he gave was the emphasis on the relatively simple flow sheet for what looks like a world-class titanium project. From everything I’ve read , that’s not very typical for the industry and it goes directly to capex, opex and scalability in a very positive manner based on SB saying all these areas offer benefits for Pitfield over current producers and competitors.

The whole ore flotation piece is a big upgrade from what we we told in early ‘25. The key aspect of this is the ability to reject up to 80% of unwanted material before it even goes into leaching. That has a hugely positive and direct knock on effect to acid consumption and the overall processing cost. We are talking about materially lowering the cost base before we even get into optimisation. That is the main lever that turns a large deposit like Pitfield into an economically viable project.

Now, in terms of timeline and what to watch next, he told us that piloting is the next major step. He said it would start around the end of Q1, so realistically this means we should see some outputs in late Q2 or early Q3. If Narelle Marriott, Poch and all the other recently appointed process experts can prove we have successfully transferred from lab-scale confidence to commercial scale confidence, then we will have entered a completely different realm of valuation. The key here is not just that piloting happens or when it happens, it’s about what comes out of the piloting.

CTD……

The key point for me, and this is just my opinion, nothing more, is around timing of any potential RNS.

I don’t personally think we’ll see an announcement along the lines of “we are applying for ASX today” and then the clock starts from there.

My view, or perhaps more accurately my hope, is that a lot of this work is already underway behind the scenes. If that’s the case, then any future update would likely confirm progress already made, and the lead time from announcement to actual listing could be significantly shorter than the full process timeline.

To be absolutely clear, I’ve no factual information to support that, it’s purely my interpretation based on how these processes typically run.

Just to close out, I’ll say this on Shaun and the wider team. In all my years of investing (circa 18 yrs) I make it my business to follow my hard earned money and make sure it’s being properly managed. That means asking questions when I feel they need to be asked, particularly in exploration and development companies where execution is everything. This isn’t NVIDIA, Ryanair or Rio Tinto, these are mature businesses. This is a project being built from the ground up, and I believe it’s only right as investors that we engage with it.

From my perspective, SB has been open, honest, transparent and communicative throughout. He welcomes feedback, he addresses questions directly, and importantly, his actions are aligning with what’s being said. At the end of the day, I’m just a normal investor like everyone else here, working a 9 to 5, trying to build something better for myself and the people around me.

But when you step back and look at what we potentially have here, a world-class, high-grade, near-surface titanium system in a Tier 1 jurisdiction, I think it’s absolutely critical that the right leadership is in place.

From my side, I couldn’t be happier with the team that SB has assembled to take Pitfield forward, and I’m very comfortable backing them to deliver what could be something genuinely significant for all of us.

Hope that helps and have a nice weekend all.

ML

Good morning all,

I’ve had a reply back from Shaun which I’m very happy with overall, particularly in how it addresses the remuneration side of things. It’s worth saying he was very complimentary in his response. He specifically thanked not just myself, but the wider group of shareholders for the thoughtful questioning and the continued support, particularly at what he described as an important stage in the company’s transition. He’s clearly aware that a number of us are in regular contact and actively engaged in discussions like this, and he also referenced that this is an exciting period for the company despite the wider market backdrop, which was good to see acknowledged directly.

In simple terms, the key takeaway for shareholders IMHO is that the structure was built from the ground up, with clearly defined and measurable milestones tied to each role, rather than a top-down allocation which explains why MD / FD were the same figure and significantly less than the alternative £4.5m (combined). When you look at it with those details, the alignment of the final figures makes a lot more sense and reflects how each individual contributed to progressing Pitfield and building the wider capability of the business.

On the forward looking side, I also took it as a very positive that the cash element was a one off due to timing and closed period constraints, and that the intention is to fully revert back to equity based incentives going forward.

That’s exactly what I wanted to see in terms of alignment with shareholders.

On the ASX, as expected, there was no definitive timeline or confirmation provided, which is completely understandable at this stage.

However, I did take the time to go through the ASX material myself. My understanding, and I’d genuinely welcome views from others here who may have done the same is that this would be a full IPO-style process, including a share offering and capital raise as part of the listing.

So based on my research I’ve copied the layout how that typically looks from the ASX Listing website.

From what I can see, you’re talking roughly a 3–4 month process end-to-end. It starts with appointing advisers (Cannacord Genuity), then moves into a fairly detailed prospectus and due diligence phase (ongoing in my opinion). From there you have early institutional engagement, followed by lodging the prospectus with ASIC and going through an exposure period. At the same time, ASX reviews the listing application, before the offer opens to retail investors, closes, and then the company lists and begins trading.

Happy to be corrected on any of that, but that’s my understanding having read through the material.

CTD…

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