August 2009
MIRABELA STARTS MINING NICKEL AT SANTA RITA
KALGOORLIE,
AUSTRALIA. Mirabela Nickel Limited (TSX: MNB, ASX: MBN) is pleased to
announce a major milestone with the commencement of owner-operator mining today
at its Santa Rita open-cut nickel sulphide mine in Brazil.
Mirabela is the
first Australian company to mine nickel in Brazil.
The mine will start with a production capacity of 4.6mtpa moving to a capacity
of 6.4mtpa in Q2 2009 and has a life of 19 years based on proven and probable
reserves.
Speaking
at the Diggers and Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie
Managing Director Nick Poll said ?The commencement of
owner-operator mining at Santa Rita is an important milestone for Mirabela shareholders. Only five years ago we made the
largest nickel sulphide discovery in over a decade and we remain on track to be
the largest independently-owned nickel sulphide project worldwide. This
is a great achievement for an independent company and testimony to the benefits
of operating in Brazil,? Mr Poll said.
In
May 2009, contractors completed pre-stripping and stockpiled about 170,000t of
ROM ore. Float test recovery work on this ore is in line with
expectations. An additional 800,000t of ore was pre-stripped with a strip
ratio of about 2:1. The stockpiled and pre-stripped ore are adequate for
commissioning the plant, due to commence upon completion of construction in
late September 2009. This start-up schedule allows several months to
prepare the mine and mining team for the onset of full production requirements
during the ramp-up phase.
The
initial mining fleet, comprised of four Caterpillar 777 trucks (100 tonne), two
D9 tracked bulldozers and a grader, will be mining a pre-blasted bench and
preparing the pit for larger scale operations. From September 2009, a second
delivery of larger capacity Caterpillar 785 trucks (150 tonne), an additional
two Caterpillar 777 trucks, Terex O&K RH90 and RH120 excavators is
expected. Maintenance and training is to be provided by the local Caterpillar
dealerships Marcosa SA and Sotreq
SA. The mining fleet is owned and operated by the Company under a lease finance
arrangement with Caterpillar Financial.
Mirabela?s
commencement of mining operations follows a significantly oversubscribed
private placement of A$117.5m (US$97.2m) to leading institutional investors in Australia,
Europe and Canada
on 29 July 2009.
|
Nick
Poll
|
Craig
Burton
|
|
Managing Director
|
Corporate Director
|
Background
Mirabela
Nickel Ltd owns 100% of the world class Santa Rita nickel sulphide project and
is listed on the Australian and Toronto
stock exchanges. With a JORC/NI 43.101 Indicated open-cut resource of 130mt
grading 0.60% Ni for 780,000t of contained Ni, Santa Rita is the largest nickel
sulphide discovery worldwide in over a decade.
Construction of a 6.4 mtpa nickel sulphide concentrator commenced in November
2007 and is due to be completed in September 2009. The operation is expected to
commence with a name plate capacity of 18,500 tpa of nickel in concentrate increasing to 26,000 tpa of nickel by mid 2010. At this rate of production
the project will have a mine life of at least 19 years. Commissioning of
the plant is expected to start in late September 2009.
Contact details
Australia
contact:
Toronto contact
(media):
Nick Poll or Craig Burton
Eric Tang, Porter Novelli
Telephone: +61 8 9324
1177
Telephone: +1 (416) 422-7200
nickp@mirabela.com.au
eric.tang@porternovelli.com
craigb@mirabela.com.au
Australia contact (media):
Warrick Hazeldine, Purple
Communications
Telephone: +61 417 944 616
whazeldine@purplecom.com.au
www.mirabela.com.au
Issued by
Purple
Communications
Level 3, 28
Kings Park Road, WEST PERTH
WA 6005
Ph: 08 6314 6300 Fax: 08 6314 6355
purple@purplecom.com.au