Mirabela Advances Nickel Project in Brazil

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Australian miner Mirabela Nickel Limited (ASX:MBN) (West Perth) is advancing through its Brazilian subsidiary Mirabela Mineracao do Brasil Limitada (Ipiau) in its Santa Rita nickel project, the company's lead development.

Santa Rita is located near the towns of Itagiba and Ipiau, in the Brazilian state of Bahia, about 100 kilometers from the city and port of Ilheus. Mirabela is developing a 4.6 million-ton-per-year open pit mine and concentrator at Santa Rita, expecting to produce approximately 18,500 tons per year of nickel in concentrate. Santa Rita contains measured reserves of 69.2 million tons of 0.61% grade nickel. Capital costs for this project are estimated at $263 million.

Long lead-time items have already been ordered, such as the semi-autogenous grinding and ball-mill grinding circuit, as well as the crushing circuit. Two Brazilian firms have been appointed to work for this project. ECM S.A. (Belo Horizonte) will be responsible for project scheduling, detailed engineering and procurement, while Construtora Barbosa Mello S.A. (Belo Horizonte) will be responsible for the construction of the plant and local infrastructure. With a projected mine life of about 20 years, Mirabela expects to achieve production of nickel by mid-2009.

According to Mirabela's authorities, given the potential mill feed tonnage from Santa Rita, the company has initiated a scoping evaluation of the capital and operating costs of constructing and operating an Ausmelt Limited (ASX:AET) nickel smelter with a capacity of about 150,000 tons per year of nickel concentrate.

Santa Rita is considered the biggest greenfield nickel project in the world. With the implementation of this project, Mirabela will become a substantial nickel producer. Main shareholders of Mirabela are Dundee Resources (Toronto, Canada) (19.9%), Mirabela's directors (12.6%), and Vale (NYSE:RIO) (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) (9.2%).

View Project Report - 67000666

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.