The Mambare nickel laterite project area has been explored, intermittently, over the last forty years. About 9 years ago, Minara Resources reviewed the available data on 158 square kilometers of the project, and concluded that the laterite layer nearest the surface contained over 200 million tonnes of ore with 1% nickel, 50% iron ore and 0.1% cobalt. The lower saprolite laterite layer has not been drilled comprehensively, but Regency Mines believes that it could contain another 200 million tonnes of ore grading between 1.25% and 1.5% nickel.

Mr Andrew Bell chairman of Regency Mines indicated that these two layers could be worth GBP 25 billion. Nickel prices have retreated considerably over the last year, however, even if we assume a savage decline of 80%. He added that "We are still talking about a potentially large project. This may explain why Regency Mines, which currently has a market capitalization of under GBP 4 million, has just acquired the remaining 25% of Mambare, taking its ownership of the 584 square kilometer project to 100%."

In April 2007, Regency and two major Chinese companies signed confidentiality agreements concerning the possible supply of untreated limonite from Mambare, as possible feedstock for blast furnaces. This relationship had the allure of early cash flow and low capital investment, and Regency’s shares, and the price of nickel, peaked over the next couple of months.

Apart from having a shallow covering of volcanic ash, the Mambare deposit is analogous to other laterite deposits in eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Typically, the deposit at Mambare includes a near-surface, earthy limonite layer of several meters thickness, which transitions into a thicker saprolite zone with rocky saprolite sitting on the bedrock below. Nickel laterite ore deposits are all near-surface deposits that have been weathered the layers nearer the surface being the most weathered and easiest to extract. Nickel laterite ore deposits are important because, as nickel sulphide deposits are depleted, nickel laterites will become the predominant source of new nickel metal.