*** NEWS ***Wallbridge Mining Company to Continue Exploration at Pele Mountain's Sudbury Nickel Project
TORONTO, ONTARIO, Jan 08, 2009 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX News Network) --
Pele Mountain Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE: GEM) ("Pele" or the "Company") announced today that Wallbridge Mining Company Ltd. (TSX: WM)(FRANKFURT: WC7) ("Wallbridge") has fulfilled its option commitment at Pele's Sudbury Nickel Project through 2008 by spending an additional $300,000 on qualifying exploration expenditures in 2008 and by recently issuing an additional 400,000 of its common shares to Pele. Wallbridge is expected to complete its earn-in of a 60-percent interest in the project by spending an additional $500,000 on exploration by year-end 2009 and can increase its interest to 72.5-percent by completing a bankable feasibility study and arranging project financing through to commercial production. The Option agreement at Sudbury demonstrates Pele's corporate strategy to joint-venture and/or monetize non-core assets in order to focus on development of its Eco Ridge Mine uranium project in Elliot Lake.
The Sudbury project covers approximately 14,000 acres on the North Range of the prolific Sudbury Mining Camp of Northern Ontario. Past exploration by Pele and Wallbridge has discovered two new offset dikes and an extensive belt of Sudbury Breccia on the Pele property. Offset dikes in the Sudbury area have hosted extensive Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization as well as several highly successful, historical and on-going mining operations. Sudbury Breccia is a host lithology often associated with footwall-style Cu-PGE mineralization.
The Sudbury Mining Camp is the most productive nickel mining district in the world, continuing to deliver world-class base and precious metal output after more than a century of operation. The camp's dominant feature is the Sudbury Basin. It is a 65-kilometre long elliptical structure that features Ni-Cu-PGE deposits along the contact and footwall of the Sudbury Igneous Complex, which forms the outer rim of the Sudbury Basin, as well as within offset dikes that emanate radially outward from it.