Empire Metals Limited Announces Pilot-Scale Testing and Scoping Study Update

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM / ACCESS Newswire / October 27, 2026 / Empire Metals Limited, the AIM-quoted and OTCQX-traded exploration and development company, is pleased to announce the planned commencement of pilot-scale metallurgical testwork on bulk ore samples collected from its Pitfield Titanium Project in Western Australia (‘Pitfield' or the ‘Project'). Pilot-scale testwork will commence in November 2026 at existing metallurgical laboratories in Perth. This initial stage will test the mineral separation, titanium extraction and refining circuits to confirm process design parameters for Pitfield's weathered ore, ahead of an integrated continuous pilot plant. It will also produce high-purity, raw titanium dioxide (TiO₂) for final product development and marketing.

Highlights

• Planning to set up, commission and test pilot-scale facilities at metallurgical laboratories in Perth is on schedule.
• Initial pilot-scale testwork will provide process design parameters and confirm equipment suitability and scalability, de-risking the process design in advance of the Company moving from Scoping Study to the Pre-feasibility Study ("PFS") phase.
• The pilot-scale runs are expected to produce material for downstream product development testing, including coated rutile pigments and feedstock for titanium sponge production.
• The Scoping Study, being undertaken by leading global engineering group DRA Global Limited, is on track, and is expected to be finalised in Q1 2027.

Shaun Bunn, Managing Director, said: "The imminent commencement of pilot-scale testwork, the first stage of our piloting programme aimed at validating the recently developed "Empire Process" flowsheet, represents an important and exciting new chapter in the remarkable story that has been rapidly unfolding at the Pitfield Titanium Project. The fact that we can carry out these pilot-scale runs at local, internationally recognised metallurgical laboratories, without significant construction delays or capital investment, is testament to the wealth of mining development experience and expertise that we have at our disposal here in Western Australia.

"We remain on track to carry out the process design and initial engineering scoping work before year-end, alongside our ASX dual listing, which is also progressing to schedule, with the scoping study to be finalised in Q1 2027. These are major milestones for the Company. As pilot scale results become available over the coming months, these results along with the scoping study results will help optimise and advance the process design and lay the groundwork for the pre-feasibility study work to follow."

Process Development Pilot-Scale Testwork

Over the last 24 months, the Company's process development team has run bench-scale testwork programmes at commercial metallurgical laboratories in Perth, investigating options for mineral separation and titanium extraction. This work culminated in a flowsheet for Pitfield's in-situ weathered ores that uses conventional processing technologies to produce high-purity, raw TiO₂ pigment (announced 11 June 2026).

The flowsheet, referred to as the "Empire Process", combines industry-standard unit processes well suited to Pitfield's weathered ores. It has two key areas, Ore Preparation and Mineral Separation, followed by Titanium Recovery and TiO₂ Production, each made up of a series of distinct process steps (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1: Empire Process: Simplified Process Flowsheet

The initial pilot-scale tests will focus on the metallurgical performance of each of the two key areas in separate phases, with the mineral separation pilot-scale run commencing at Strategic Metallurgy's laboratory in late November/early December. The mineral flotation concentrates produced from this run will be delivered to Simulus Group's metallurgical laboratory in early Q1 2027 for pilot-scale testing of the titanium extraction and raw TiO₂ pigment recovery steps.

Details of the initial pilot-scale runs are summarised below:

Mineral Separation - Strategic Metallurgy Laboratory

Strategic Metallurgy will test the mineral separation circuit in Perth, Western Australia, where much of the previous bench-scale and bulk batch mineral separation testwork has been carried out.

As per the flowsheet developed in earlier testwork, Strategic Metallurgy will complete the comminution, sizing, and froth flotation steps using continuous piloting equipment it owns and has assembled.

This circuit will be operated on a continuous basis, taking crushed ore as feed and producing a final flotation concentrate and flotation tailings product. The ore feed sample selected for use in this programme is a blend of Thomas deposit saprolite zone material from the 2025 Air Core drilling programme. Concentrate produced will be filtered and stored in preparation for further downstream processing into raw TiO₂ pigment. Samples of any coarse rejects and final flotation tailing streams will be collected for input into early engineering studies.

Figure 2 - Strategic Metallurgy's pilot-scale froth flotation equipment and a bulk flotation test using Pitfield ore and the pilot flotation cell in batch mode in September 2026.

Titanium Recovery and TiO₂ Production - Simulus Group Laboratory

The titanium recovery and TiO₂ production piloting run will be undertaken at Simulus in Perth Western Australia during Q1 2027. Some of the batch testwork on the flowsheet, in particular acid leaching, has previously been carried out at the Simulus laboratory. The key unit process to be carried out on a continuous pilot-scale basis is the acid bake and water leach steps to recover the titanium. Acid pre-leach will be carried out as a bulk batch operation, with additional small scale bench tests confirming performance using recycled acid streams.

The remaining steps, such as titanium hydrolysis and calcination, will be operated as large-scale batch processes, which is how they would operate in a full-scale commercial plant. This larger-scale programme will also allow a closed-loop test, taking a planned recycle stream of hydrolysis spent liquor back to the front of the flowsheet to feed into the acid pre-leach. Data from this will be used to confirm details in the process design model, which was developed earlier this year. This programme will also allow for the collection of preliminary data for engineering design of the circuit and potential by-product and final waste stream samples for further testing.

Figure 3: Simulus Group's pilot-scale rotary kiln, kiln discharge hopper and off-gas handling.

Final Product Development

Rutile pigment has been successfully produced from Pitfield's anatase-rich in-situ weathered ores, indicating that the crystal form of the final pigment product is determined by processing conditions rather than by the titanium minerals present in the ore (announced 24 September 2026).

The main output from the combined pilot-scale test runs at the Strategic and Simulus metallurgical laboratories will be a raw anatase pigment from the titanium hydrolysis step. This material will be used for downstream testing, including:

• calcination testwork for conversion to rutile pigment;
• rutile pigment coating testwork to allow completion of customer-based product evaluation;
• agglomeration testwork to confirm suitability as a chlorinator feedstock or for the Kroll process to produce titanium sponge; and,
• as feedstock for the Company's research project with Murdoch University and the Critical Metals for Critical Industries Cooperative Research Centre ("CMCI CRC") investigating molten salt electrolysis to produce titanium metal from raw TiO₂ pigment products.

Scoping Study

The Company has appointed DRA Global Limited ("DRA") as the lead study manager for a scoping study for Pitfield, and work is under way. The process design and initial engineering work is expected to be carried out before year-end, with the scoping study expected to be finalised in Q1 2027.

The scoping study will assess the technical and economic viability of developing Pitfield as an integrated mining and processing operation producing high-purity TiO₂ products, and will include, amongst other things, a mining schedule based on the weathered ore resource, a process plant design based on the Empire Process flowsheet and associated operating and capital cost estimates.

The Board considers completion of the scoping study a key milestone for the Company. Pitfield's scale, near-surface weathered mineralisation and the use of conventional processing technologies are expected to support a competitive cost position, and a key objective of the study is to assess where Pitfield would sit on the global cost curve relative to existing TiO₂ producers. The scoping study outcomes will inform the PFS, the next stage of the Project's development.

ASX Dual Listing

In addition, and as previously announced, the Company is targeting a dual listing on the Australian Securities Exchange ("ASX") in H2 2026, led by Canaccord Genuity (Australia). Work on the dual listing is progressing to schedule.

About Strategic Metallurgy

Strategic Metallurgy Pty Ltd, established in 2010, is a metallurgical consulting company whose business model is to work with mining companies to develop their metallurgical strategy and ensure that it fits into their overall business plan. With a proven track record of providing expert consulting, process development, testwork management, feasibilities and strategic reviews Strategic Metallurgy has the extensive hands-on experience that Empire requires to progress the Pitfield Project through the metallurgical testing, process modelling, flowsheet design stages to pilot plant design and operation.

About Simulus Group

The Simulus Group was founded in 2004 as a specialist process engineering and simulation business with a particular focus on hydrometallurgy, the result of the founding team's industry experience. As hydrometallurgy specialists, Simulus work across all major unit operations, including leaching (atmospheric, pressure, alternative media), solid-liquid separation, impurity removal, precipitation, solvent extraction, ion exchange, adsorption processes, evaporation-crystallisation, and electrowinning/electrorefining.

About DRA

DRA Global Limited is an international, multidisciplinary engineering, project delivery, and operations management group focused primarily on the mining, minerals, and metals industry. With a track record spanning four decades across a wide range of commodities, DRA provides comprehensive advisory, engineering, and project delivery services that advance projects from conceptual and pre-feasibility studies through to bankable feasibility studies, implementation, and ongoing operations and maintenance, with offices across Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, and Asia-Pacific.

Competent Person Statement

The scientific and technical information in this report that relates to process metallurgy is based on information reviewed by Ms Narelle Marriott, an employee of Empire Metals Australia Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Empire. Ms Marriott is a member of the AusIMM and has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code 2012. Ms Marriott consents to the inclusion in this announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears.

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, as incorporated into UK law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, until the release of this announcement.

**ENDS**

For further information please visit www.empiremetals.co.uk or contact:

About Empire Metals Limited

Empire Metals Ltd (AIM:EEE) and (OTCQX:EPMLF) is an exploration and resource development company focused on the commercialisation of the Pitfield Titanium Project, located in Western Australia. The titanium discovery at Pitfield is of unprecedented scale and hosts the largest titanium resource reported globally (to JORC or equivalent standard), and among the highest grade, with a Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) totalling 8.16 billion tonnes grading 4.3% TiO₂ for 349 million tonnes of contained TiO₂.

Titanium mineralisation at Pitfield occurs from surface and displays exceptional grade continuity along strike and down dip.

Conventional processing has already produced a high-purity product grading 99.25% TiO₂, targeting pigment and titanium sponge metal feedstock. With excellent logistics and established infrastructure, Pitfield is strategically positioned to supply the growing global demand for titanium and other critical minerals.

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact [email protected] or visit www.rns.com.

SOURCE: Empire Metals Limited

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