Toledo Mining, the AIM listed exploration group working on nickel laterite deposits in the Philippines, has been given the green light to press ahead with a planned drilling campaign at its Berong nickel project.

Exploration Permit EP60 was issued to Toledo's 56.1% held Berong Nickel Corporation, which it co owns with Atlas Consolidated Mining & Development Corporation (25.2%) and European Nickel (18.7%).

A drilling program of 20,000 metres using six drill rigs will start immediately and is expected to take 12 months to complete. The company aims to publish a revised JORC resource approximately six months after completion. The current pre JORC resource estimate for Berong stands at approximately 275 million tonnes of nickel ore at around 1.3% nickel.

Toledo is hoping the program will delineate a JORC resource of over 40 million tonnes of nickel laterite ore, which it reckons would be sufficient to support a potential nickel mine producing 20,000 tonnes per year.

Production at the Berong project has been suspended since February 2009 because of the continued low market price of nickel.

In November 2009, the operation suffered a further setback when Queensland Nickel, a BHP Billiton company, moved to cancel an off take agreement which required it to buy a minimum of 300,000 wet metric tons of nickel laterite ore per year until mid 2012. BNC is disputing the decision.

(Sourced from www.smallcapnews.co.uk)