Reuters reported that Australian miner Highlands Pacific expects to start production at its minority held Ramu nickel and cobalt project by the end of 2011 after a court in Papua New Guinea lifted a months long injunction.

The court's decision cleared the way for the commissioning of the USD 1.5 billion project which was delayed for 18 months over environmental concerns.

Mr John Gooding MD of Highlands Pacific said that "I wouldn't be surprised that by the end of this year we'll start to see some product, in the next few months maybe. But it will take probably 18 months to ramp up to full capacity."

Ramu is expected to produce 31,150 tonnes of nickel and 3,300 tonnes of cobalt a year for at least 20 years. Highlands holds an 8.56% stake in the project while Metallurgical Corporation of China leads a Chinese consortium that owns 85%.

The rest is held by the Papua New Guinea government. Robust Chinese demand for raw materials has boosted commodity prices, with nickel surging nearly 34% in 2010. On July 28th 2011, three month nickel on the London Metal Exchange hit a high of USD 24,690 a tonne, its loftiest since mid May 2011.

Highlands also holds a stake in the Frieda River copper and gold project, also in Papua New Guinea, and Gooding said the company is looking at raising funds as part of its share in the project's capital cost of USD 5.3 billion.

Mr Gooding said that "How much of that would be debt and how much would be equity, we're still doing work on that. Towards the end of next year we'll need to have that done."

Highlands has an 18.18% interest in Frieda River with the rest held by Xstrata. The project is estimated to yield about 260,000 tonnes of copper and around 360,000 ounces of gold per year. A feasibility study on Frieda River is expected to be completed by the end of the year and production is likely to begin in 2017.

(Sourced from www.reuters.com)