Empire Metals: Pitfield Process Flowsheet and Product Development

Chapter One Advisors

Empire Metals Limited, the AIM-quoted and OTCQX-traded exploration and development company, is pleased to announce the completion of an integrated metallurgical processing flowsheet for the Pitfield Titanium Project in Western Australia ("Pitfield" or the "Project"). The flowsheet is capable of producing a premium 99%+ TiO₂ pigment, supported by bench-scale testwork now successfully completed across the key processing stages. Pitfield’s use of conventional processing technology, combined with the orebody’s mineralogical advantage and the Project's location near readily available infrastructure, underpins a highly competitive cost structure. The flowsheet also offers the optionality to produce titanium metal feedstock and a high-grade alumina co-product.

Highlights

• Integrated flowsheet defined to produce high-purity (99%+) TiO₂ pigment and titanium sponge metal feedstock, plus a high-grade alumina co-product, from one of the world's largest and highest-grade titanium deposits.

• Pitfield offers a cost advantage over the conventional ilmenite sulphate route, driven by mineralogical advantages of the Pitfield ore and flowsheet: rejection of a low-value gangue fraction at the front of the circuit, lower acid consumption and leach temperatures, recycling of acid through the alumina circuit, and a vastly smaller iron residue stream.

• Flowsheet built entirely on proven, conventional processing steps, materially de-risking scale-up and feasibility.

• Whole-of-ore flotation confirms selective recovery of titanium minerals with rejection of more than 90% of unwanted gangue, producing concentrate grades above 34% TiO₂.

• Titanium extraction of up to 98% achieved via an acid bake-water leach process, after atmospheric-pressure pre-leaching to remove the majority of the residual aluminium and iron from the titanium stream.

• High-grade alumina (98.7% Al₂O₃) produced from the pre-leach solution, offering the potential for a highly marketable co-product that simultaneously lifts TiO₂ recovery, lowers reagent costs and reduces waste.

• Positioned to provide a significant Western source of TiO₂ rutile pigment and titanium sponge metal feedstock, distinct from the energy-intensive ilmenite supply source that currently dominates global production.

• Continuous metallurgical piloting to commence Q3 2026 to validate design criteria ahead of feasibility studies and produce product samples for evaluation by potential customers and offtake partners.

• Empire has commissioned a research programme at Murdoch University's Extractive Metallurgy Hub to develop a process for producing titanium metal directly from Pitfield’s TiO₂ product via molten salt electrolysis, offering a potential low-cost, lower-emission route to titanium metal and a pathway to further downstream value.

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: “The development of a fully integrated processing flowsheet  utilising conventional beneficiation, leaching and refining processes to produce a high-grade (99.25% TiO₂) product represents a defining moment in the development of the Pitfield Titanium Project. This outcome not only demonstrates the potential to produce high-quality TiO₂ products, positioning Pitfield to serve premium pigment and titanium metal markets, but also provides an option to produce high-grade alumina, a highly marketable co-product.

“We are on track to complete the process design and scoping phase of the Project following an extensive and productive period of research, testwork and innovation.  Further engineering and pilot-scale testwork will continue to evaluate scalability, allow process optimisation and further demonstrate the Project’s merits. Pitfield is emerging as a differentiated, large-scale critical minerals project, well-positioned to meet the needs of titanium and TiO₂ end-users at a time when new, low-cost supply solutions are increasingly sought after.”

David Tasker 

Chapter One Advisors  

T: 0433 112 936

E: [email protected]