Highlands Pacific will divest its interest in the Ramu nickel and cobalt project in Papua New Guinea with ABN Amro commissioned to assist in this process.

Highlands aims to concentrate on operating in the copper and gold sector and the Ramu project sits outside this strategy.

The company has an 8.56% interest in Ramu, which will increase to 11.3% at no cost to the company after the debt raised to finance the project has been repaid. At that time Highlands will also have the option to buy an additional 9.25% in Ramu at fair market value, which if exercised would take Highlands Pacific's total interest to 20.55%.

China Metallurgical Construction Group manages and operates the joint venture and is responsible for arranging 100% of the project development costs.

The Ramu project will produce 32,000 tonnes of nickel and 3200 tonnes of cobalt per year when fully operational and has an operating life estimated to be in excess of 20 years. The project is expected to be commissioned in the second half of 2009.

Pre-construction engineering and design work is continuing while the definitive metallurgical test work program has been substantially completed. This work is being used to provide final design criteria for the processing plant and slurry pipeline design. Total capital expenditure to date on the project is about US$148 million.