Western Areas reports on high grade nickel at Spotted Quoll

Australian mining group, Western Areas, has reported that nickel deposits at Spotted Quoll, which forms part of the Forrestania Nickel Project, could equal those of its Flying Fox nickel mine, in terms of size and grade.

Further drilling at Spotted Quoll, which lies 400km east of Perth, has detected high-grade nickel intersections and indicated possible further discoveries around the deposit.

In September, Western Areas announced a mineral resource estimate for Spotted Quoll indicating a total 1,045,900 tonnes at an average grade of 7.2% nickel for 75,140t contained nickel.

Based on current reported mineral resources and ore reserves, Spotted Quoll and Flying Fox therefore qualify as two of the highest grade nickel deposits in the world.

In October the Flying Fox mine achieved a record monthly production of 21,245 tonnes ore at an average grade of 4.73% nickel for 1,006 tonnes contained nickel extracted from the mine.

In total Western Areas has defined in excess of 270,000 tonnes of contained nickel at the Forrestania Nickel Project.

For 2008, the company’s production target is 8,000 tonnes of nickel, increasing to 35,000 tonnes of nickel from 2011, when there should be five operating mines at the project.