Western Areas is an Australian-based nickel sulphide explorer and producer listed on the ASX and TSX (ASX & TSX Code: WSA). The Company's core asset is the 100% owned Forrestania Nickel Project, located 400km east of Perth.

The primary discovery at Forrestania, Flying Fox, is one of the highest grade nickel deposits in the world. Total Mineral Resources at Flying Fox comprise 2.0 million tonnes at an average grade of 4.7% nickel, containing approximately 92,090 tonnes of nickel. Western Areas' produced 8,000 tonnes of nickel in the 1st full year of production at Flying Fox.

The Company is also developing a number of other discoveries at the Forrestania Nickel Project.

Permitting is underway for Western Areas (planned second nickel mine), Spotted Quoll (discovered October 2007) 6km South of Flying Fox. The Mineral Resource at Spotted Quoll is 2.0Mt at an average grade of 6.2%, containing approximately 125,460 tonnes nickel to 640m depth. The Open Pit is planned to be mined in two stages. Pre strip mining of the Open Pit is planned to commence in September Quarter 2009. Spotted Quoll already exceeds Flying Fox in size even though the current limit of drilling is only equivalent to the bottom of the Flying Fox T1 deposit.

Early site works for the underground mine at Diggers South (planned third nickel mine) comprising an evaporation pond, pipelines, waste dump and other surfaced infrastructure is almost complete. The initial surface infrastructure works at Diggers South were completed in Dec 2008 to enable an early start to access the Digger Rocks underground mine. The mine dewatering pumps were tested for four days. The test was a success and the drawdown worked as planned.

Earth moving contractors MACA excavated the previous Outokumpu box cut. Depending on the nickel price, a decision is expected to be made in the first half of 2009 to rehabilitate the Cosmic Boy mine decline. The current Mineral Resource is 180,900 tonnes at 2.8% nickel containing 5,000 tonnes of nickel.

Operations are cash flow positive and entirely hedge free. Flying Fox will be one of Australia's lowest cost nickel mines. From 2011 Western Areas is targeting an annual production of 35,000 tonnes of nickel per annum, at the 100% owned Forrestania Nickel Project. The Board has recently ratified a dividend policy, aiming to pay at least half the Company's net profit after tax in two half-yearly dividends and hopes to be in a position to declare the first dividend in January 2009