Berong Nickel not resuming operations

MANILA, Philippines - Improving nickel prices have not provided enough reason for Berong Nickel Corp. (BNC), a subsidiary of Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp., to resume its nickel laterite mining operations.

Nickel prices quoted at the London Metal Exchange (LME) yesterday was up at just over $9 per pound, although long-term view for nickel prices is expected to hover around $6 to $7.50 per pound.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Atlas reported that “BNC continues to assess the potential to re-open the Berong nickel laterite mine as a direct shipping operation, but no decision has been made to resume mining.”

Atlas has a 25.2 percent economic interest in the Berong nickel project.

Atlas announced that the Mines and Geosciences Bureau recently granted BNC’s application for an exploration permit, allowing the commencement of a planned drilling program in certain areas of Palawan covered by the Berong Nickel Project.

The 20,000-meter drilling program which is expected to be completed within 12 months will start immediately with six drill rigs that are already on site.

In the same disclosure, Atlas reported the completion on Feb. 16, 2010 of its third shipment of copper concentrates for this year through its subsidiary Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC).

The shipped concentrates, which were produced from the Toledo copper mine in Toledo City, Cebu, had a total volume of 5,504 wet metric tons (wmt) and contained 28.43 percent copper, 3.4 grams gold/dry metric ton (dmt) and 29.41 grams silver/dmt per preliminary assays.

The consignee for the Feb. 16 shipment, which was loaded at CCC’s Sangi port on board M.V. Atago, is Yanggu Xiangguang Copper Co. Ltd of Shandong Province, P. R. C.

Remaining concentrate stocks at the Sangi port storage bins are estimated to have a volume of 4,100 wmt. – Marianne Go