Empire Metals (LON: EEE) shares are up 15% today. EEE shares are also up some 100% or so over the past month. It is true that titanium is merely an industrial mineral, one priced in the $100s per tonne, but even so find enough of it and it’s both worth money and worth mining. We think that what’s causing the Empire share price to rise is this gradual dawning upon the market that they really might have something that meets that test. Sure, the initial numbers are interesting - but this is a bulk business and what the most recent explorations seem to be indicating - indicating only so far - is that the bulk is also there.
As with the most recent announcement: “Strong titanium mineralisation confirmed throughout entire first Diamond Core drillhole, from surface to end of hole at 408m, providing further support for the presence of a district-scale, metal-rich, hydrothermal mineral system containing multiple, thick higher grade titanium zones within the larger mineral system. Diamond drillhole #1 (DD23MTS001) intersected wide intervals of higher-grade titanium mineralisation: 276.5m @ 4.57% TiO2 from 80.5m; including 118.5m @ 5.13% TiO2 from 80.5m; and 144.8m @ 4.24% TiO2 from 207.2m” The important thing here is the thickness of those beds.
Empire Metals share price from Google Finance
We’ve looked before at Empire Metals: “Well, we'd come back to what we said when that Pitfield titanium was last discussed. Which is that it's interesting, in a way, but not exactly value changing.” Then there was more news, more recently, from EEE: “Empire Metals (LON: EEE) shares are up 12% today on the announcement of further titanium finds. Or, to be rather more accurate, on indications that there might be a lot more there than initially thought. Indications only at this stage though, for the proof needs to be checked.
Which is exactly what is happening. We’ve long known that those titanium concentrations are interesting. It’s therefore been how much - or here, how deep are those beds - that matters. This further exploration finds there’s lots. Which is what is adding the value.
Now, obviously, there are further stages of confirmation to go. But it is possible that Empire has indeed found a major deposit - thus that doubling of the share price recently.
