Ji'en Nickel to buy Canadian nickel mining resources

Ji'en Nickel Industry Co. Ltd., a Shanghai-listedInterfaxon Nov. 19.

"Ji'en Nickel will pay CAD 45 million ($35.88 million) to Goldbrook, after which the two companies will conduct joint exploration work for a period of three years. Ji'en Nickel will hold a 50 percent stake in the Raglan deposit, located in the northern part of Canada's Quebec Province," the Ji'en Nickel official, who asked not to be identified, said.

The volume of the deposit's reserves are not yet known, according to the official, who added that Ji'en Nickel has made no concrete plans as to its nickel concentrate output at the deposit.

Ji'en Nickel has been scouting out nickel resources to feed its new 15,000-ton per annum nickel metal content facility, expected to come online in 2009. In addition to its new Canadian interests, the company has invested in the Ramu nickel and cobalt project in Papua New Guinea, establishing a joint facility with China Metallurgical Construction Corp. (C) with a designed output capacity of 32,800 tons of nickel and 3,200 tons of cobalt per annum. The facility is expected to start operations by the end of 2009.

The company has a current refined nickel production capacity of 6,000 tons of nickel metal content per annum.

Ji'en Nickel's stock fell by 10.03 percent on Nov. 18 to RMB 10.67 ($1.56). The company suspended trading of its stock on Nov. 19, due to a meeting of major stockholders.

-LCL