Steel Guru : Mustang announces feasibility study on Maskwa Nickel Project

Mustang Minerals Corporation has announced details of recent progress on feasibility study work at the Maskwa Nickel Project which is located near Lac du Bonnet. Maskwa is a planned, open pit, nickel project with target production of 10 million pounds of nickel in concentrate per annum. It has made significant progress towards final metallurgical test work, geotechnical studies, a geological block model and a new mineral resource estimate. This advance will lead into the new mine design and the completion of the project feasibility study.

Mustang recently completed a large program of drill core re sampling. The objective of this program was to sample and assay all potentially mineralized sections of core previously not tested. These include extensions to the main mineralized zone and expansion of the lower-grade Hangingwall zone first discovered near the centre of the deposit. Assay results from this recent program have been entered to the deposit database and work by Micon International Limited to develop a block model and resource estimate is now underway. The newly completed database now contains almost 14,000 samples, compared with the database used in the previous resource model in 2007 which contained close to 10,000 samples.

The target date for completion of a revised mineral resource for Maskwa is September 2009.

In addition to the re sampling of core, almost 1000 assay pulp samples retained from the 2008 drilling programs at TSL laboratories in Saskatoon were re assayed to obtain nickel values by aqua regia digestion, where the original assays were reported after total digestion. This standardizes the database and hence the resource model. Metallurgical testing results have been brought in line with the same nickel assay technique.

Extensive metallurgical test work has been completed on both the Main Zone material and the surrounding disseminated material. A detailed grade recovery curve based on open cycle test work has been developed and additional locked cycle test work will be completed in the next month.

Based on this internal assessment, a new Mayville composite sample was prepared and metallurgical testing conducted at PRA using a modified flow sheet to recover separate nickel and copper concentrates. Although the grade of this composite was a little higher than the proposed higher grade zone, the test results are extremely encouraging. Separate copper and nickel concentrates of marketable grade and with precious metals credits were produced. Results are summarized below from the latest open cycle test. Work will continue to a scoping study for the project which is seen as auxiliary to the larger Maskwa project.