Empire Resources

Yuinmery Copper-Gold Project
100% Interest

The Yuinmery copper-gold project is situated 475 km northeast of Perth, WA.  It lies within the Archaean Youanmi Greenstone Belt and covers a synclinal sequence of chloritised felsic tuffaceous rocks, sulphide bearing chert horizons, gabbro, basalt and ultramafics.

During the quarter a 33 hole, 963m reconnaissance RAB drilling programme was completed in the Fitz Bore area located 4 km south of the Just Desserts prospect. This progamme was designed to test areas where previous exploration had outlined weak soil gold anomalies.

The RAB drilling was successful in locating three new areas of gold mineralization associated with quartz veining in gabbro returning intersections of  8m @ 0.51g/tAu from surface, 4m @ 0.62g/tAu from 24m and 7m @ 0.58g/tAu from 40m to EOH. Further work on these discoveries is being planned.

* Assays are 4m composites done by Aqua Regia digest with ICP-MS finish.

Copper-gold mineralisation, previously identified from a number of prospects at Yuinmery, is of volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) style similar in nature to orebodies currently being mined at Golden Grove and Jaguar in Western Australia. It occurs as massive sulphides associated with chert exhalite horizons, as matrix sulphides in lapilli tuff, and associated with mafic and ultramafic intrusions.

At one of the Yuinmery prospects, Just Desserts, previous drilling by the Company has intersected high grade copper –gold zones with assays such as 23m @ 2.68% Cu, 1.28g/t Au; 14m @ 2.63% Cu, 1.91g/t Au;  13m @ 2.55% Cu, 1.67g/t Au; 6m @ 3.79% Cu, 12.85g/t Au and 10m @ 4.23% Cu, and 6.01g/t Au.

Based on the above drilling an indicated + inferred JORC resource of  1,070,000 tonnes @ 1.82%Cu, 0.78g/tAu was estimated for the Just Desserts prospect and reported on in the March 2009 Quarterly. This resource lies between 50 and 250 metres below surface, is open at depth and along strike to the southeast. Elsewhere in the world deposits of this style of mineralization commonly occur in clusters and have been mined to great depths as shown by the comparison with Bousquet La Ronde Penna, a series of gold - base metal VMS deposits, currently the largest gold producing camp in Canada.

The Company has scheduled for the December quarter a diamond drilling programme to expand the size of the Just Desserts resource at depth and an RC programme to locate similar deposits at the B Zone, C Zone, Claudius and Augustus prospects.

Empire's Yuinmery project is located 475 kilometres northeast of Perth, within the Youanmi Greenstone Belt that forms part of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton. The Company holds a 9.2 square kilometre block of tenements situated approximately 6 kilometres east of the Youanmi Gold Mine. In addition, the Company has applied for an adjacent exploration licence covering an area of 37.8 square kilometers.

The copper-gold mineralization at Yuinmery is of a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) style, similar in nature to orebodies being currently mined at Golden Grove and Jaguar in Western Australia. The mineralization occurs as massive sulphides associated with chert exhalite horizons, as matrix sulphides in lapilli tuff, and associated with mafic and ultramafic intrusions. As typical of this style of mineralization, a number of separate mineralized occurrences occur over the approximately 7.5 km strike length of prospective rocks mapped within the project area.

Empire's exploration to date has consisted of extensive aerial, ground and downhole electromagnetic geophysical surveys together with RAB and reverse circulation drilling. This has been successful in defining several discrete zones of copper-gold mineralization. To date the most intensively drilled zone is at the Just Desserts prospect where thick high grade mineralized intersections have been recorded. These include:

The mineralization at Just Desserts remains open along strike and at depth below 200 metres. Preliminary metallurgical testwork indicates that high recoveries of gold and copper may be expected from the treatment of this mineralization.

Drilling programs are progressing to enable an estimation of a resource in order to undertake mining feasibility studies.

Penny's Find Gold Project
100% Interest

At the Penny’s Find project the Company has identified a near surface resource of 314,000 tonnes @ 5.2g/t Au. The proximity of the deposit to Kalgoorlie, the current gold price in Australian dollar terms and the ability to mine a substantial portion of the resource by open pit methods enhances the value of this resource.

On 13th October 2009 the Company announced to the ASX it had secured an interest in a joint venture with Rubicon Resources Ltd whereby it may earn a 51% interest in Rubicon’s Mt McLeay tenements which lie adjacent to and along strike from Empire’s 100% owned Penny’s Find gold deposit.

Under the terms of the Mt McLeay Joint Venture, Empire must spend $220,000 within 18 months to earn a 51% interest in the 40 sq km of tenements that comprise the joint venture. At Rubicon Resources election, Empire may then earn a further 19% interest by expenditure of an additional $500,000 over twenty four months.

Several historical gold workings occur on the Mt McLeay tenements with previous shallow exploration drilling returning a number of significant intercepts. Intersections such as 4m @ 4.05g/tAu, 8m @ 1.15g/tAu and 8m @ 0.46g/tAu present immediate drill targets for the Company.

The joint venture also doubles the area of ground available for exploration around Penny’s Find to 80 sq km offering an excellent opportunity to expand the Company’s resource base, further enhancing the economics of the project. No deep drilling has been undertaken on any of the old gold workings and Empire will be following a similar exploration model to Penny’s Find where surface leaching depleted gold in the first 10 - 20 metres from surface. 

The Penny's Find project is situated in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. It lies 50 kilometres northeast of Kalgoorlie and 30 kilometres from the Kanowna Belle Gold Mine.

Within mining lease M27/156, gold mineralization is associated with quartz veining developed at or near the northwest trending sheared contact between volcanic rocks of intermediate to mafic composition and sediments. This mineralization dips at about 60 degrees to the northeast. Strong weathering in the area has resulted in irregular surface leaching of gold and some supergene gold enrichment.

Empire has drilled 74 reverse circulation holes totaling 7,245 metres and 4 diamond core holes totaling 1,259metres to evaluate this mineralization. Numerous wide high grade intersections were obtained from the drilling. These include:

Resource modeling consultants, Datageo Geological Consultants, were engaged to estimate a resource for the gold mineralization intersected in the reverse circulation drilling program. The resource grade was estimated using ordinary kriging based on the drill hole data composited down hole to 1 metre intervals within constraining shapes representing the mineralization. Assumed specific gravity values used were: oxide 2.0tonnes per cubic metre (t/cu.m); transitional 2.2 t/cu.m; and fresh 2.5 t/cu.m.

The mineral resource estimate is summarized in the following table:

PENNY'S FIND MINERAL RESOURCE

Ongoing studies of the Penny's Find resource are continuing looking at various development options available to the Company.

Elsewhere within the Penny's Find Project area, potential exists for additional gold occurrences. One of these areas with exploration potential is the extension of the Penny's Find contact zone. This zone, which lies along the contact between volcanic rocks of intermediate to mafic composition and sediments, can be traced from aeromagnetic data and by RAB drilling for several kilometres in a northerly direction. RAB drilling programs undertaken by the Company in this area have indicated several potential zones of interest with intersections including 18m @ 1.71 g/t Au and 8 m @ 0.54 g/t Au. Deeper drilling is required to evaluate these occurrences.