Ji’en Nickel and Goldbrook have announced that they will conduct joint exploration work for a period of three years on the Raglan deposit, located in the northern part of Canada’s Quebec Province. Ji’en Nickel will pay CAD 45 million to Goldbrook and Ji’en Nickel will hold a 50% stake in the deposit. The volume of the deposit’s reserves are not yet known. Ji’en Nickel has been scouting out nickel resources to feed its new 15,000tn per annum nickel metal content facility, expected to come online in 2009. In addition to its new Canadian interests, the company has invested in the Ramu nickel and cobalt project in Papua New Guinea, establishing a joint facility with China Metallurgical Construction Corp. with a designed output capacity of 32,800tns of nickel and 3,200tns of cobalt per annum. The facility is expected to start operations by the end of 2009.