Mining Press Roundup: Empire Metals' 8-Billion-Tonne Titanium Find Headlines a Critical Minerals Blitz

The biggest mining story of the week wasn't a takeover or a financing round -- it was a drill result. Empire Metals confirmed its Pitfield project in Western Australia now holds the largest titanium resource ever defined anywhere in the world, a scale upgrade that triples the deposit's prior estimate and lands squarely in the middle of a critical minerals investment wave sweeping juniors from Wyoming to Greenland. With gold pushing toward $4,624/oz and silver near $69.35/oz on the back of Treasury bond-buying, according to market data, investors have plenty of reasons to keep scanning the wires -- and this week's press releases gave them several.

Empire Metals: Pitfield Confirmed as World's Largest Titanium Resource

Empire Metals shares jumped after the junior unveiled an upgraded resource for its Pitfield project in Western Australia, which it says confirms the deposit as the world's largest titanium resource, with the updated mineral resource estimate putting Pitfield at 8.16 billion tonnes grading 4.3% titanium dioxide, containing 349 million tonnes across the Thomas and Cosgrove deposits. The new figure more than tripled the Mineral Resource Estimate at its Pitfield Titanium Project compared with the maiden October 2025 estimate of 2.2 billion tonnes at 5.1% TiO₂, containing 113 million tonnes.

Critically, the update also establishes Pitfield's first measured resource, increasing confidence in the deposit as Empire advances mine planning and economic studies. Managing director Shaun Bunn said "the upgraded MRE, which underlines the sheer scale of this discovery, comes just weeks after we demonstrated an integrated flowsheet based on conventional processing steps to produce 99% pure titanium dioxide." Empire also touts logistics advantages: the project has existing rail connections to ports serving markets in Asia, the United States, Europe and Saudi Arabia. The market responded immediately, with Empire shares closing at 51.20 pence in London trading Wednesday, giving the company a market capitalization of almost £388 million ($729 million).

Sunrise Energy Metals: Friedland's Scandium Bet Gets $400M Pentagon Backing

Robert Friedland's long-shot scandium project is finally moving. Sunrise Energy Metals, where the Ivanhoe Mines founder is non-executive chairman, secured a $400-million conditional loan commitment from the U.S. Department of Defense for the Syerston scandium project in New South Wales. The project hosts one of the largest and highest-grade mineable scandium deposits within a Western jurisdiction, the company said.

The backstory is telling of how strategic-metals policy is being written in real time. The USGS estimates that global production totalled about 80 tonnes in 2025, while Sunrise's Syerston project, designed to produce 60 tonnes annually, is one of several proposed non-Chinese sources and has yet to begin construction. Sunrise CEO Sam Riggall, who has worked alongside Friedland on major copper projects, put the scale in perspective, noting "this is a tiny project," but argued what took China two decades to build can be replicated faster in central New South Wales. Washington's Office of Strategic Capital framed the deal in geopolitical terms, with director David A. Lorch calling it "a significant step in establishing supply chain resiliency for an increasingly critical mineral."

Ramaco Resources: Brook Mine Lands Gallium-Germanium Deal with Indium Corp

Wyoming's coal country keeps producing critical-minerals headlines. Ramaco Resources and Indium Corporation signed a preliminary deal to explore domestic gallium and germanium supplies from Wyoming's Brook Mine project, entering a non-binding memorandum of understanding. Ramaco describes the project as holding what it believes is the nation's largest unconventional deposit of rare earth elements and critical minerals sourced from coal and carbonaceous ore, and says Brook Mine is America's first new rare earth element and critical-mineral mine in more than 70 years.

The Brook Mine's ambitions go beyond gallium and germanium. The site's inferred mineral resource contains both light and heavy rare earth elements -- including high-value elements such as dysprosium and terbium -- as well as critical minerals such as gallium, germanium and scandium, with minimal radioactive elements associated with other REE deposits. Ramaco CEO Randall Atkins said "we believe this MOU demonstrates a promising opportunity to introduce Brook Mine gallium and germanium into established domestic and allied supply chains." While non-binding, the pact underscores how domestic semiconductor-materials buyers are lining up early behind US critical-mineral juniors, even ahead of firm offtake terms.

Greenland Mines: Sarfartoq Rare Earth License Clears Key Hurdle

Greenland's rare earth ambitions took another step forward. Greenland Mines announced that the Government of Greenland, through the Ministry of Business and Mineral Resources, formally approved the indirect transfer of Mineral Exploration License MEL 2020-32 covering the Sarfartoq Carbonatite Complex from Neo Performance Materials to Greenland Mines, satisfying a key regulatory closing condition for the company's acquisition of the Sarfartoq neodymium-praseodymium rare earths project.

The asset carries real technical depth. The project hosts 5.88 million indicated tonnes grading 1.77% total rare earth oxides and 2.46 million inferred tonnes grading 1.59% TREO, for roughly 27 million kg of neodymium oxides and 8 million kg of praseodymium oxides. As part of the transaction, Neo Performance will receive offtake rights on up to 60% of future ore or mineral concentrate production from Sarfartoq. The site also comes development-ready: the project is supported by more than 15 years of exploration work and over 23,000 meters of drilling, extensive metallurgical test work, and environmental baseline studies already underway, and comes with an existing 20-person camp and two drill rigs ready for immediate mobilization. Combined with the company's Skaergaard platinum-group project, Greenland Mines is positioning itself as a rare dual-commodity Arctic play just as Western governments race to diversify magnet-metal supply away from China.

Omai Gold Mines: Guyana Project Valued at $4 Billion

South America's newest gold jurisdiction just produced a headline number. A new preliminary economic assessment for Omai Gold Mines' namesake project in Guyana positions it among the largest and most valuable undeveloped gold projects in South America, with a $4-billion net present value discounted at 5% assuming a $3,600/oz gold price, against $1.42 billion in initial capital costs, and a 24% internal rate of return with a 4.1-year payback for a project that could mine 6.3 million oz. of gold over an 18-year life.

At current gold prices the economics look even better: at the recent spot price of $4,200/oz, the after-tax NPV5% increases to $5.5 billion, IRR increases to 30% and the payback reduces to 3.4 years. The project has deep production history too -- Omai is one of South America's largest past-producing gold mines, having yielded more than 3.7 million oz. between 1993 and 2005. Not every analyst is unreservedly bullish: National Bank of Canada's Rabi Nizami said the study "validates a globally relevant scale and long-life production profile, with better throughput, production and strip ratio than expectations," though offset by the $1.4 billion in costs and four-year payback period. Guyana's broader appeal keeps growing -- the country has emerged as a choice gold jurisdiction, drawing investment with its stable mining regime, improving infrastructure and an array of discoveries that have positioned it as a new exploration hotspot alongside neighbours Suriname and Brazil.

Central Nevada Gold: Mule Canyon Owner Eyes More Nevada Deals

Nevada's brownfield gold rush has a new consolidator. Privately held developer Central Nevada Gold will look at acquiring other precious metals assets in the state after buying the past-producing Mule Canyon mine from Newmont earlier this summer, CEO Simon Griffiths said. Having closed the $20-million Mule Canyon acquisition in late June, Central Nevada is now working to advance the asset through prefeasibility and permitting in next year's second half with the goal of delivering a construction decision in 2028, expects to announce a new mineral resource estimate for the property in the coming months, and is also working on an initial public offering possibly as early as the first half of 2027.

Mule Canyon has history on its side: discovered in 1986 by Gold Fields, the mine was brought into production by Newmont in 1996, churning out about 500,000 oz. of gold over five years before mining ended in 2000 due to low gold prices, after only two of six zones had been mined and fewer than half of pre-mining reserves had been extracted -- leaving significant unexploited potential. Griffiths is betting on a broader industry trend: major gold producers such as Newmont and Barrick Mining have been selling smaller or non-core mines to take advantage of elevated commodity prices and raise cash for massive, low-cost assets in tier-one jurisdictions -- a trend Central Nevada Gold is keen to capitalize on.

What It Means

Today's releases reinforce a theme that has been building for weeks: capital and government support are converging fast around critical minerals, even as the traditional bulk commodities keep grinding higher. Titanium, scandium, gallium, germanium and rare earths -- metals that barely registered as investment themes a few years ago -- are now attracting nine-figure government loans (Sunrise's $400 million DoD commitment), semiconductor-industry supply MOUs (Ramaco-Indium), and license approvals with geopolitical weight (Greenland Mines). Meanwhile gold juniors like Omai and Central Nevada Gold are leaning on record bullion prices -- gold at $4,624/oz and silver at $69.35/oz per market data -- to unlock projects that were uneconomic at lower prices, whether through fresh PEAs or brownfield acquisitions from majors shedding non-core assets.

The common thread is jurisdictional diversification away from China and traditional supply chokepoints -- Western Australia, Wyoming, Greenland, New South Wales and Nevada are all being reframed as strategic-minerals real estate. With COPX up 5.2% and URA up 5.1% day-over-day per market data, investor appetite for the metals underpinning defense, semiconductors and the energy transition shows no sign of cooling.

This roundup covers press releases published on August 24, 2026. Company announcements are sourced from mining industry wire services. For corrections or updates, contact contact@stakeandpaper.com.