An atmospheric leach process in the recovery of nickel and cobalt from lateritic ores, said processing including the steps of: a) separating the lateritic ore into a low magnesium containing ore fraction, and a high magnesium containing ore fraction by selective mining or post mining classification; b) separately slurrying the separated ore fractions; c) leaching the low magnesium containing ore fraction with concentrated sulphuric acid as a primary leach step; and d) introducing the high magnesium content ore slurry following substantial completion of the primary leach step and precipitating iron as goethite or another low sulphate containing form of iron oxide or iron hydroxide, wherein sulphuric acid released during iron precipitation is used to leach the high magnesium ore fraction as a secondary leach step.