Empire strikes deep copper-gold-moly (November 24, 2008)

Vancouver — Having wrapped up a 1,300-metre, six-hole drill program at its Bursa property, 120 km south of Istanbul, in Turkey, Empire Mining (EPC-v) has hit long, near-surface, copper-gold-molybdenum intercepts in five of six holes drilled at the Karapinar target.

Hole 6 returned as much as 100 metres grading 0.5% copper, 0.007% molybdenum and 0.1 gram gold per tonne starting from surface. Hole 7 cut 128 metres grading 0.31% copper, 0.013% moly and 0.11 gram gold starting 6 metres down-hole. And hole 8 returned 224 metres starting from surface grading 0.36% copper, 0.011% moly and 0.08 gram gold.

These results were good news for Empire as they confirm mineralization first encountered by Rio Tinto (RTP-N, RIO-l) and delineate a near-surface mineralized area so far about 400 by 400 metres in size and open in all directions.

What also caught Empire’s eye were supergene-enriched intercepts hit on the southwest margin of drilling that included native copper. Within the longer 224-metre intercept, hole 8 cut 25 metres grading 1.01% copper, 0.012% moly and 0.21 gram gold starting 43 metres down-hole.

Empire says it is evaluating the higher-grade intervals for possible copper recovery by leaching.

Empire can earn a 65% interest in the project from Anatolia Minerals Development (ANO-T, ALIAF-o) if it pays Anatolia US$520,000 over five years (beginning in 2007) and issues the company 5% of its fully diluted shares as it stands in 2012. It must also spend US$7.5 million on exploration over five years and complete a prefeasibility study by the end of six.

As for ongoing work on Bursa, Empire president and CEO David Cliff says Anatolia is having bench-scale metallurgical recovery and water-quality testing carried out.

And anticipating the coming year, Cliff wrote in an email: “We are looking at the drill-hole results for followup drilling aimed at extending the resource potential and helping define the potentially leachable mineralization (at Bursa).”

In terms of financing this summer, Empire closed a $2-million dollar private placement issuing about 6.9 million units at 30 a unit. Units are comprised of one share and half a warrant. Each warrant entitles its holder to buy a share for 38 until Feb. 6, 2010.

On news of the drill results, Empire’s share price held at 7.5. There are about 24.5 million shares outstanding.