Ausnico (ANW)

Shares / Stock Code

ANW

Stock Exchange / Sharemarket

ax

AusNiCo (ANW) is an Australian-based exploration company focused on the discovery and development of nickel-cobalt mineral deposits in South East Queensland. AusNiCo was incorporated on 1 December 2006 as a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed D'Aguilar. Investors can trade shares on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).

In line with D’Aguilar’s stated objective to foster growth within its subsidiaries and in order to provide working capital, $2,270,000 of seed capital was raised by AusNiCo from May 2007 to December 2008, thereby reducing D’Aguilar’s interest in AusNiCo to approximately 80%. D’Aguilar has continued to fund the continuing exploration and administrative expenses of AusNiCo from December 2008.

AusNiCo holds a 100% interest in twelve (12) mineral tenements in southeast Queensland representing over 700km2 of terrane with strong Nickel Cobalt potential, as well as applications for two (2) further mineral tenements, upon which AusNiCo proposes to further explore and, subject to receipt of successful exploration results and economic conditions, develop towards production.

AusNiCo is the only independent company on the Australian market that has discovered completely new occurrences of nickel sulphide mineralisation in Eastern Mainland Australia at grades and widths that have been profitably mined in similar geological settings at the Avebury nickel mine near Zeehan, Tasmania and at the Aguablanca mine near Seville, Spain.

AusNiCo also has discovered nickel oxide occurrences within its tenements – possibly with nickel sulphide occurrences at depth beneath them. It is the only company with drill-defined nickel resources between Brisbane and Gladstone in Southeast Queensland – an area of substantial industrial growth, especially in mineral processing, and excellent infrastructure facilities.

AusNiCo has a proven expertise to discover the newly recognised “Paleozoic-Aged” nickel sulphide mineralisation that has been profitably mined in similar geological settings at the Avebury nickel mine near Zeehan, Tasmania and at the Aguablanca mine near Seville, Spain. The Company will retain this expertise and apply it diligently throughout its tenements and throughout other districts that show potential.

The Company’s tenements have been carefully assembled since mid 2007 to cover the prospective geology for these deposit types in southeast Queensland. Should a new nickel province exist in this region, AusNiCo Directors believe that it is most likely contained within AusNiCo tenements.

AusNiCo has discovered significant new ore-grade nickel-cobalt sulphides and copper-gold mineralisation zones at the Pembroke prospect on the Black Snake Plateau, 30km south of Kilkivan in Southeast Queensland. Drillhole PEM 2 at Pembroke has intersected 4 metres of fresh nickel sulphides grading 1.1% nickel and 525 ppm (0.05%) cobalt within a large 50 metre-wide zone of significant nickel sulphide mineralisation averaging 0.34% nickel. The bottom of the hole was still in this nickel mineralisation indicating that the mineralised zone may be even thicker than intersected in the drill hole.

The copper-gold zone of 20 metres averaging 0.48% copper, 1.5 g/t gold that occurs above the nickel sulphides in hole PEM 2 is typical of the copper-nickel zonation of the entire Black Snake Plateau district.

AusNiCo has also discovered high-grade copper-silver sulphides at the Silver Valley prospect located two kilometres east of Pembroke as announced by D’Aguilar in its ASX release of 2 June 2008. The first drillhole at Silver Valley, SG1 intersected 14 metres at a grade of 1.2% copper and 87g/t (2.8 ounces per tonne) of silver in primary sulphide mineralisation. The potential for high grade extensions to considerable depths is therefore encouraging. The discontinuous 5km long, 500m wide soil geochemical anomaly at Silver Valley suggests significant potential exists for a major mineralised system. AusNiCo intends to conduct further detailed exploration at this zone entry to identify a major ore body.