On November 7th 2011, Empire reported that it temporarily suspended its Albanian operations.

In January 2011, Empire applied for automatic renewal of its Albanian exploration licenses, having fulfilled all legal and technical requirements required by the legislation under which the licenses were granted in 2009. Although the exploration licenses were renewed, it came to management's attention that they contain anomalies with respect to size and coordinates compared to the original licences. Empire is committed to rectifying the matter as soon as possible and in the interim will focus additional efforts on advancing its two projects in Turkey.