BRAZIL Vancouver-based CANICO RESOURCE CORP. is pushing ahead at its planned Onca Puma nickel mine in Para State. The company's board has approved spending $55 million on highway and road upgrades, an electrical power line to the site, and continued infill drilling. The feasibility study is due by the end of this year.
The Onca Puma property hosts nickel laterite deposits that could be mined as open pits. The total inferred resources for Onca Puma and the smaller Puma West deposits are estimated at 104 million tonnes grading 2.15% Ni and 0.105% Co, using a 1.5% nickel cut-off. A scoping study prepared last November by HATCH ENGINEERING indicated that a single-line rotary kiln ferronickel plant with an annual capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of ore would cost about US$560 million. To double the capacity would require another US$300 million. The proposed single-line plant could operate for 90 years at an annual rate of 59 million lb of nickel.
Details and news of the Onca Puma development are available at www.canico.com. <br>
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