Mirabela produces first nickel concentrate at Santa Rita

    
    
    TSX: MNB, ASX: MBN
    

PERTH, Australia, Nov. 3 /CNW/ - Mirabela Nickel Limited (TSX: MNB, ASX: MBN) is pleased to announce the production of first nickel concentrate from the Santa Rita project in Brazil. The commissioning of the crushing, grinding and flotation circuits is progressing well.

Over 119,000 tonnes of ore has been crushed and the mill stockpile contains about 78,000 tonnes. About 42,000 tonnes of ore has been milled. The grinding circuit is operating at up to 550 tonnes per hour.

It is anticipated that Santa Rita production will ramp up substantially over the next three months.

For and on behalf of the Board

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.

Commissioning of the Santa Rita plant and mining operations are well underway. The operation is expected to ramp-up to the full name-plate capacity of 6.4Mtpa of ore producing 26,000tpa of nickel in concentrate by September 2010. Current reserves support a mine life of at least 19 years.

Contacts

Australia contact: Nick Poll
Managing Director
Telephone: +61 8 9324 1177
nickp@mirabela.com.au

Australia contact (media): Warrick Hazeldine
Purple Communications
Telephone: +61 8 9485 1254
whazeldine@purple.com.au

UK and Europe contact: Alex Buck
Buckbias
Telephone: +44 (7932) 740 452
alex@buckbias.com