Gold and copper exploration and development company Empire Metals has raised £3-million to advance exploration at its Pitfield project, in Western Australia.

This was done by way of an oversubscribed placing of 75 000 000 new ordinary shares of no par value in the capital of the company (placing shares), with new and existing shareholders in the company, at a price of 4p each.

The net proceeds of the placing will be primarily used to allow Empire Metals to expand the planned Phase 1 reverse circulation (RC) drill programme, currently scheduled for later this year, following on from the 1 500 m diamond core programme which began earlier this month.

The phase 1 RC programme involves a significant drilling campaign, which will be carried out along the length of the high-density gravity core and, in particular, focusing on the very dense zones that have now been identified within the magnetics anomaly.

The objective of this drill programme is to not only confirm the scale of this giant, titanium-enriched mineral system but to also understand the distribution of key factors better. These factors include grade, mineralogy, thickness and extent of mineralised beds and controls on high-grade titanium dioxide mineralisation.

Following this successful placing, a second phase of RC drilling will now be planned for early next year, expanding on the targets already included in Phase 1. 

These additional funds will also allow Empire Metals to commence mineralogical and metallurgical studies which will provide further information on the most economic route to processing.

"We have received exceptional results from our exploration efforts at Pitfield to date, and today's fundraising will ensure that we can continue to push ahead, unimpeded, to a point where we can begin to establish the potential value of this giant, titanium-enriched mineral system,” states Empire Metals MD Shaun Bunn. 

“We have received significant support from existing and new investors in this oversubscribed placing. I believe this is a sign that the market is beginning to grasp the potential global significance of our discovery at Pitfield.  I would like to thank our shareholders, both new and old, and I look forward to reporting on the drilling now underway at Pitfield over the coming weeks."