Empire Resources finds new copper, gold and rare earth angles at Yuinmery

Yuinmery delivers a spread of new exploration signals

Empire Resources Limited (ASX:ERL) has added several new threads to its Yuinmery exploration story, reporting gold at Microbe Well, copper at Lorne and Just Desserts, palladium-platinum mineralisation at Hillside North and rare earth oxide anomalies across the project. The results remain exploration-stage intersections rather than resources or reserves, but they give the company multiple targets to advance through the December quarter.

The strongest copper result came from Just Desserts, Empire’s flagship Yuinmery deposit. Drill hole YRC26-43 returned 18 metres at 1.57% copper and 0.10g/t gold from 96 metres, including 8 metres at 2.94% copper and 0.19g/t gold. The broader drilling campaign also produced 23 metres at 0.50% copper at YRC26-16A and separate copper intervals at YRC26-42 and YRC26-44. Empire is preparing an updated Mineral Resource Estimate, while metallurgical work continues on oxide and transitional ore.

That resource work builds on the company’s existing combined Just Desserts and A-Zone JORC resource of 3.56 million tonnes at 1.25% copper and 0.46g/t gold, using a 0.5% copper cut-off. The company has not yet disclosed the outcome of the updated estimate or the recovery results from its acid leaching, magnetic separation and gravity concentration tests.

Microbe Well and Lorne remain open for follow-up drilling

At Microbe Well, YRC26-49 intersected 21 metres at 0.60g/t gold from 97 metres, with the hole ending in 0.28g/t gold at 118 metres. Empire says further drilling is planned around YRC26-49 and the earlier discovery hole YRC26-35, which returned 17 metres at 0.54g/t gold from 35 metres, including 4 metres at 1.14g/t gold.

Lorne, about 700 metres north of the A-Zone resource, produced broad but lower-grade copper intervals: 19 metres at 0.35% copper from 25 metres in YRC26-52, including 1 metre at 1.03% copper, and 16 metres at 0.27% copper in YRC26-53. The mineralisation is open at depth and along strike, and Empire plans more drilling. The result extends the company’s follow-up work from the earlier Yuinmery drilling results, which identified new copper-gold and gold targets across the project.

Rare earth and PGE targets broaden the project

Empire also retrieved archived assay data to test the rare earth potential around YT01, YT19 and YT02. New results included 1,712.5ppm TREO+Y over an 8-metre composite interval at YAC19-11, 1,455.5ppm over 4 metres at YAC19-09 and 1,265.9ppm over 4 metres at YAC19-02. The company has requested additional full rare earth data from historic and current drilling, making the next batch of assays important to determining whether these anomalies form a coherent mineralised zone.

The rare earth work follows Empire’s Yuinmery rare earth signal, which highlighted mineralisation across three prospects and historic results as high as 3,146.7ppm TREO+Y. Empire is considering a flotation-based beneficiation concept for REO-phosphate material, but no economic assessment or completed metallurgical result has been reported.

Separate drilling at Hillside North returned palladium-platinum intervals including 7 metres at 1.82g/t Pd-Pt within 55 metres at 0.74g/t, while two follow-up holes returned 4 metres at 1.67g/t and 8 metres at 1.55g/t Pd-Pt. Empire says palladium is dominant in the saprolitic clays and that the mineralisation could be a vector towards primary sulphides at depth, although that interpretation remains untested by deeper drilling.

Pennys drilling awaits assays as Bradley Well moves closer

Outside Yuinmery, Empire completed 34 air core holes for 1,777 metres at Pennys during September. Four-metre composite samples were still in the laboratory at quarter end, with results expected in the December quarter. At Bradley Well near Meekatharra, the company received approval for its Program of Works and scheduled drilling for the same quarter, advancing a potential northern extension to Solstice Minerals’ Nanadie copper-gold project. The move follows the company’s Bradley Well target review, which prioritised two magnetic areas for drilling.

The exploration programme was funded from $2.571 million of cash at 30 September, alongside $656,000 in tradeable securities. Empire spent $423,000 on exploration during the quarter and reported an estimated 4.52 quarters of available funding based on its stated cash-flow calculation. It also repaid $200,000 to chairman Dr Michael Ruane, leaving $1.05 million in unsecured director loans carrying 7.5% annual interest. The company’s next assays, resource update and metallurgical results will therefore arrive against a balance sheet that still has room for exploration, but not without financing obligations.