Adelaide, Sept 5, 2006 (ABN Newswire) - A large continuous exploration drilling program to prove up one of Australasia's most promising nickel projects has been announced by Rusina Mining Limited (ASX: RML).

The two-staged drilling program has commenced this month and will target both the shallow nickel laterites and higher grade deeper nickel sulphide styles at the Acoje project on Luzon Island in the Philippines, leading to the project's first JORC resource estimate for nickel laterites within the coming December quarter.

"We have set an initial target of between 40-60 million tonnes of laterite @ between 0.9 and 1.2% nickel on the limonites alone at Acoje," Rusina's Managing Director, Mr Robert Gregory, said today.

"A pitting program of between 100 metres and 200 metres interval over an 11 kilometre by one kilometre wide corridor and involving more than 600 pits has now covered half of the extent of the mapped laterite at Acoje," Mr Gregory said.

"Using a 0.9% cutoff, a very encouraging area of 300 hectares of mineralized laterite has been identified and we hope to double this area after pitting results are concluded. The Company is now ready to drill in earnest after undertaking an enormous amount of preparatory work this year across the three different styles of mineralisation evident at Acoje," Mr Gregory said.

"While the test pitting is continuing, we are now ready for the first major campaign to deliver drill-based results," he said.

"Our first priority is to test Acoje's deeper, high grade nickel laterite's known as saprolites, for depth and extent."

"These basically sit under the known shallower limonite nickel corridors and while indications are that the saprolite is mineralised with many pits terminating in grades above 1.5% Ni, the grade and thickness of the saprolite are currently unknown.

"It has the potential, however, to significantly enhance the grade of the maiden resource estimate"

The drilling program into the saprolite is not expected to be completed until around year's end. A second JORC resource update is expected by the opening quarter next year

Mr Gregory confirmed today that the Company was well advanced in negotiations with significant land holders in the area to increase Rusina's local laterite land holding.

"It is hoped to eventually delineate a large enough resource to support a world-class laterite program of between 100-200 million tonnes @ 1.1-1.3% Ni," he said.


PGM Nickel Sulphide Program

Mr Gregory said the later stage of the drill program would drill into the deeper Induced Potential (IP) anomalies identified following the final interpretation by Geophysicists on the IP data collected at Acoje earlier this year.

"We believe the bulk of the chargeability is sulphide related and we have identified seven target zones for test drilling that correspond with our new Platinum Group Metals (PGM) geological model."

"The PGM exploration is very exciting, but will take some time to test the full potential of Acoje. Some of the Nickel laterite test pitting has uncovered PGM laterites with 3E (the combination of Au, Pt and Pd) grades exceeding 4g/t and similar characteristics to the hard rock mineralisation previously tested on site".

"The high grade PGM content of the laterites highlights the tremendous hard rock PGM potential at Acoje".