The property is the subject of an Exploration Option and Operating Joint Venture agreement with CVRD Inco as part of NAP’s strategy to focus on identifying high quality nickel-copper-PGM targets located in relative proximity to the Lac des Iles operation. In March 2006, an amendment to the option and joint venture agreement added the past-producing Shebandowan Mine to the property package. Once a producer of nickel, copper and platinum group elements, the Shebandowan Mine lies in a region considered to be underlain by a complex ultramafic rock unit that formed the host of nickel-copper PGE mineralization at the mine. Nickel-copper PGE mineralization at Shebandowan occurs as stringer, breccia and massive sulphides that are hosted within highly altered and deformed ultramafic bodies, which have been interpreted to be komatiitic basalts.

In the immediate area around the Shebandowan Mine, two significant ultramafic units have been recognized, a “Main” unit which was the principle host rock to the nickel-copper mineralization at Shebandowan and a “South” unit. As a follow up to a short, 4-hole diamond drill program otaling 584 metres in length in 2005 around the historic “D Zone” located approximately 1,500 metres west of the old mine workings, NAP completed an eighty-three hole drill campaign in 2006 totaling 12,511 metres in length. This was an expansion of the originally proposed fifteen hole follow-up program that focused on testing an area west of the Number 1 Shaft immediately to the west (along strike) of the Shebandowan Mine containing the “West” Zone and “Road” Zone.

Encouraging intersections encountered in the South unit (such as 20.1 metres of core length grading 1.93% nickel, 1.02% copper, 0.94 g/t palladium, 0.18 g/t platinum, 0.16 g/t gold and 0.05% cobalt from Hole SP06-015) warranted further investigation. An infill drill program for the West and Road Zones was initiated around the higher grade intercepts to enable a reliable resource estimate to be completed on the West, Road and D Zones, in addition to the verification of all historic data.

Composite drill core samples have been submitted to SGS Lakefield for preliminary metallurgical test work to examine the potential to process Shebandowan Mineralization through the Lac des Iles concentrator. The economic potential of an underground mining operation is being assessed which, if determined to be feasible, would be accomplished so as to minimize surface disruption and environmental impact. A Technical Report prepared in compliance with the equirements of National Instrument 43-101 confirming the mineral resource estimate at Shebandowan West, which was completed in October 2007.