URSA Major Minerals Incorporated says it will ship about 10,000 tonnes of Shakespeare nickel copper ore for processing to Xstrata Nickel's Sudbury operations.

The ore's delivery is to be completed by the end of June, URSA Major Minerals said.

The shipment will enable further evaluation of opportunities for blending Shakespeare ore with Xstrata's ore and will provide URSA Major with additional cash, the company said.

“URSA Major is well positioned to survive the downturn in base metal commodity prices and to achieve a rapid restart of operations when conditions permit,” Richard Sutcliffe, URSA Major's CEO said in a release.

“Other than limited maintenance costs and property taxes, the company has no financial obligations required in order to maintain the Shakespeare property,” Sutcliffe said.

“We are currently evaluating the opportunity to restart shipments to Xstrata should there be a modest improvement in base metal prices,” he said.

“We anticipate that base metal prices should strengthen in the second half of 2009 through 2010, with significant price improvement in the longer term.

“The Shakespeare deposit benefits significantly from the recent copper price gains as our ore produces more copper than nickel. Platinum has also shown strong recent price improvement and is a significant part of our metal payments.”

URSA Major describes itself as an emerging mining company focused on growth through nickel, copper, and precious metal exploration and development, primarily in Ontario.

Mining at URSA Major's Shakespeare Nickel Project located 70 kilometres west of Sudbury has been temporarily suspended since October.

To date, URSA Major has mined about 150,000 tonnes of ore at Shakespeare and this has been processed at Xstrata Nickel's Strathcona mill.