Belvedere to restart Hitura nickel mine

Belvedere Resources (BEL-V) has produced the first concentrate from its Hitura nickel mine in Finland ahead of a scheduled start-up in August.

Belvedere acquired 100% of the mine in February and the mine and mill are now ramping up to full production.

The junior anticipates that in July the mine will produce 18,000 tonnes of ore – or about 40% of the full production rate of 45,000 tonnes per month – a rate that it expects to reach in January 2011.

Operations are forecast to produce about 2,100 tonnes of nickel in concentrate in the first 12 months.

For the first 18 months of production, Belvedere has a guaranteed price for
its nickel concentrates, through a fixed price off-take agreement, the company says.

Belvedere’s mill at Hitura is close to its gold properties, Kiimala and Kopsa. This gives the company flexibility and options in terms of processing gold ore through the mill or in a parallel gold circuit, the company states on its website.

At presstime Belvedere was trading at about 15¢ a share.

Over the last year the junior has traded in a range of 5.5¢-26¢ per share and has about 119.2 million shares outstanding.