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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Thursday was a mediocre 60-79-171 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell six points to 779. Adrian Smith's First Atlantic Nickel Corp. (FAN) has results from the first hole of a phase II drill program at its Atlantic nickel project in central Newfoundland. The test returned just 0.22 per cent nickel and 0.31 per cent chromium, but across a hefty 447.4-metre zone that began near surface.

Further, the company cheers that its metallurgical tests yielded a magnetite concentrate averaging 1.27 per cent nickel, 1.69 per cent chromium and 0.06 per cent cobalt while eliminating nearly 91 per cent of the rock. Of course, while the mass pull was an encouragingly low 9 per cent, remember that the nickel pull was barely 51 per cent and the amount of chromium recovered was just shy of 50 per cent of the assayed grade.

This new hole was drilled 200 metres east of the last test of the phase I program. That hole yielded results with ever-so-slightly-higher numbers. The bottom line -- a mass pull of just 8.2 per cent and concentrate grades of 1.47 per cent nickel, 1.53 per cent chromium and 0.06 per cent cobalt across a 351-metre interval -- was broadly in line with what the company has been getting from its other holes, keeping its stock perched near the 20-cent mark since last fall.

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