Acoje

The Acoje deposit is located on Luzon Island in the Philippines, 180 miles (290 kilometres) away from Manila, and covers an area of 3,765 hectares. The deposit has a combined JORC inferred and indicated resource of 50.14 million tonnes grading 1.08% nickel and 0.05% cobalt. Drilling has recently been completed at Acoje and a new JORC resource statement will be announced shortly.

A Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) has already been completed at Acoje, and a Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) is currently underway.

Bankable Feasibility Study

In December 2011 the Company completed a Bridging Study between the PFS which utilised heap leaching processing and tank leaching technology. The tank leach test work demonstrated the superior recoveries and economics of atmospheric tank leaching (‘ATL’) compared to heap leaching.  Recoveries of nickel and cobalt over a three stage leaching circuit averaged 92% and 97% respectively in a 22 hour leach period.

On the basis of the superior results the Company has decided to only take the tank leaching option forward into the BFS. Importantly, an additional benefit of the ATL option is the ability for it to be staged. This allows significantly greater flexibility in financing options for the project as well as the earlier production of nickel.

Now that the preferred upstream process route has been selected, Jacobs Engineering (formerly Aker Solutions) has been appointed to complete the BFS.  Many vendor components and sub-consultants of the study are quite advanced including: GHD for the waste disposal, environmental and geotechnical studies; Outotec Oyj for counter current decantation (‘CCD’) circuit design; Puritech for continuous ion exchange (‘CIX’) design and Chinese Harbour and Engineering Co. for the port study.

The BFS is targeted for completion during the third quarter of 2012.

Acoje General Gallery