Arrow mulls Alexo options.

Timmins -- High base-metal prices and a Chinese market hungry for nickel is spurring on exploration and mining east of Timmins.

Canadian Arrow Mines Ltd. has completed its open pit mining and is shipping out the last of the nickel sulphide ore from its Alexo and Kelex operations, located about 45 kilometres northeast of Timmins. The ore was being shipped to Falconbridge's Strathcona Mill facility in Sudbury at a rate of approximately 4,000 tonnes per month, says vice-president of exploration Dean MacEachern.

Presently, they are assessing the viability of the underground phase of the Alexo mine, and are focusing more on their regional exploration program for the Mann, Kenogaming and Hart/McWatters properties, about 28 km southeast of Timmins.

MacEachern calls them "high potential properties" for nickel and says they have some good targets.

The company has begun some field work with ground geophysics and hope to be drilling by the end of the year. The regional exploration programs will total to approximately $1 million.

Right next door, Liberty Mines Inc. is gearing up for production at their Red Stone Mine. Officials expect it will yield 400 tonnes of nickel ore every day, which will be shipped to Sudbury and China.

President and CEO Dr. Gary Nash says there is 200,000 tonnes of historic ore reserves. At a production rate of 400 tonnes/day, it would take two years to mine, but they plan to start exploration in January.

"There's been a lot of reserves and deep drilling below the mines that indicates another 1.5 million tonnes that we have to prove up by further drilling," he says. "If mother nature co-operates with us, and we find ore where we expect, we would have a five to 10-year mine life."

The mine has had several past owners, so Liberty can get up and running with a relatively small investment of $1.3 million.

As an exploration company, Liberty was incorporated in 1996, and with recent management changes in March, Nash says the goal is to "put the property into production."

The Red Stone mine's average nickel grade is 3.2 percent, with some platinum, palladium and cobalt.

In a telephone interview in early September, Nash said they already started on the mill with predevelopment, working drawings and concepts, and plan to have it running by the spring of 2006. He estimates the mill will process about 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes of concentrate a month.

Initially, the mine will employ 30 to 36 local Timmins and area people, and another 10 to 15 people for the mill, resulting in a $4 million economic impact to the area.

Liberty's future plans are to put their McWatters property (about four to five km east of Red Stone) and the McCarrol Lake property (100 km south of Timmins) into production.

http://www.canadianarrowmines.com/s/Home.asp

www.libertymines.com

By ADELLE LARMOUR

Northern Ontario Business