Western Areas is one of Australia's premier Nickel producers and yesterday the company delivered another strong quarterly production result

Western Areas is one of Australia's premier Nickel producers and yesterday the company delivered another strong quarterly production result. WSA is characterized by high grade nickel deposits that have allowed the company to stay on track during a sustained period of depressed nickel prices. Since the start of the calendar year the Nickel price has had a strong and sustained rally of over 20% (chart). During the same period WSA shares have doubled, highlighting the leverage these quality producers have to commodity prices. Macquarie Equities retain their outperform rating on WSA following yeserday's quarterly result. WSA's core projects delivered another strong performance with production from both mines beating our estimates. The strong operational performance and improved nickel prices resulted in WSA generating free cash flow of $13m for the Q, 13% higher than forecast. Maintain Outperform. The quarterly report is available here: (VIEW LINK)