Empire Metals Ltd on Tuesday confirmed the presence of a giant-scale hydrothermal titanium and copper mineral system at its Pitfield project in Western Australia.

Empire Metals shares jumped by 51% to 2.80 pence each in London on Tuesday morning. The stock has more than doubled in the past 12 months.

The London-based minerals explorer and developer, which has projects in Australia and Austria, said its maiden drilling programme at the Australian project has indicated the presence of a metal-rich 40 kilometre by 8 kilometre system.

The firm said the drilling has identified consistently high-grade titanium in thick intersections in the area, with titanium mineralisation of between 4% and 10% titanium oxide in 20 of the 21 holes drilled.

Empire Metals said the results also show highly anomalous copper values - greater than 100 parts per million - in 60% of the drill samples, With the average at 131 parts per million and the highest at 605.

The company added that so far only 2% of the system has been drilled, which it said demonstrates the ‘enormous potential’ for future discoveries.

Managing Director Shaun Bunn said: ‘We are absolutely thrilled with the results of our maiden drilling campaign. Our research over the past year pointed to the presence of a newly recognized giant copper mineral system at Pitfield, in itself no minor feat, however the results announced today add a whole new dimension to this globally important asset - the discovery of titanium rich minerals in my view tells us we have a ’Land of Giants’ to explore.’

Bunn added: ‘Clearly more work is required, not least because 98% of the mineralised system is still to be drilled and evidently we tagged an enormous, titanium rich part of the system. Based on the scale of this find, Pitfield has the potential to be one of the largest primary titanium sources discovered globally.’

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