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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - April 10, 2025) - Nickel 28 Capital Corp. (TSXV: NKL) (FSE: 3JC0) ("Nickel 28" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the pending receipt of its eighth cash distribution from the Ramu joint venture.
Nickel 28 has received confirmation of a cash distribution for H2 2024 operating performance of approximately US$1.2 million in respect of its 8.56% joint-venture interest in the Ramu Nickel-Cobalt project in Papua New Guinea, which is operated by Metallurgical Corporation of China. Nickel 28 also received confirmation of the repayment of US$2.1 million of Nickel 28's portion of the remaining Ramu joint venture partner construction debt, reducing Nickel 28's attributable balance to approximately US$36.5 million. The timing of receipt of the distributions remains to be confirmed but is anticipated to occur during April 2025.
"As already noted in our prior press releases, the second half of 2024 was impacted by two independent events which reduced production. One was the planned 30-day plant-wide shut down during September/October undertaken to implement capital improvement projects which have increased Ramu's production capacity. The other was the temporary reduction in production due to a mechanical failure of one of the two blowers in the acid plant at Ramu's HPAL facility that reduced production from mid-November 2024 through to mid-February 2025," commented Craig Lennon, Nickel 28's CEO. "This impact on production obviously has a significant impact on the cash distribution we receive and the loan repayment we make. We expect 2025 will be a better year in terms of production, but it remains to be seen what impact commodity prices will have in these times of global economic uncertainty. Something we can control at the project level is production costs, and at a company level is corporate costs. Ramu remains one of the lowest cost nickel laterite operations in the world and the project manager continues to work hard in the areas of cost and production efficiency. At the Nickel 28 company level, we continue to focus on maintaining a reduced and disciplined cost profile and continue to expect corporate costs for the current year (FY2026) to be under US$2.5 million, excluding any costs associated with legal claims and transaction activity."
About Nickel 28
Nickel 28 Capital Corp. is a nickel-cobalt producer through its 8.56% joint-venture interest in the producing, long-life and world-class Ramu Nickel-Cobalt Operation located in Papua New Guinea. Ramu provides Nickel 28 with significant attributable nickel and cobalt production thereby offering our shareholders direct exposure to two metals which are critical to the adoption of electric vehicles. In addition, Nickel 28 manages a portfolio of 10 nickel and cobalt royalties on development and exploration projects in Canada, Australia and Papua New Guinea.