NICO Project development advancing with U.S.
and Canadian Government financial support
Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQB: FTMDF)
(“Fortune” or the “Company”)
(www.fortuneminerals.com) is pleased to announce that it has
retained Worley Canada Services Ltd. (“Worley”) to conduct
additional engineering and lead the preparation of an updated
Feasibility Study for the NICO Cobalt-Gold-Bismuth-Copper Project
in Canada (“NICO Project”). The NICO Project is an advanced
Critical Minerals development comprised of a planned mine and
concentrator in the Northwest Territories (“NWT”) and a
hydrometallurgical recovery plant in Lamont County, Alberta
(“Hydrometallurgical Facility”) where concentrates from the
mine, and other feed sources, will be processed to value-added
products for the energy transition and new technologies. Worley has
also been retained to assist with permitting for the
Hydrometallurgical Facility, which is planned to be constructed at
a brownfield site held under a purchase option arrangement from
JFSL Field Services LLC (“JFSL”) (see news release dated,
August 19, 2024). Development of the vertically integrated NICO
Project would provide a reliable North American supply of cobalt
sulphate, gold doré, bismuth ingots, and copper cement produced
with supply chain transparency, Canadian
Environmental-Social-Governance (“ESG”) standards, and
compliance with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act
(“IRA”).
Fortune was recently awarded ~C$17 million of non-dilutive
grants and contribution funding from the U.S. Department of Defense
(“DoD”), Natural Resources Canada (“NRCan”) and
Alberta Innovates to help finance the work needed to advance the
NICO Project to a project finance and construction decision (see
news releases dated, May 16, 2024, and December 5, 2023). The funds
are supporting metallurgical test work at SGS Canada Inc.
(“SGS”) to validate recent process optimizations and flow
sheet modifications, update the Feasibility and Front-End
Engineering and Design studies for the planned development, permit
the Hydrometallurgical Facility, and secure the remaining
authorizations, management plans, and satisfy the environmental
assessment measures and water license conditions required to
construct and operate the NICO mine and concentrator.
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The NICO Project was assessed in a positive Feasibility Study in
2014 by Micon International Limited (“Micon”) but is now out
of date. Micon, and P&E Mining Consultants Inc.
(“P&E”) who also contributed to the 2014 study, will
assist Worley with preparation of the NI 43-101 Technical Report,
and the updated Mineral Reserve estimates and Mine Plan for the new
Feasibility Study, respectively. Worley’s discipline experts have
reviewed historical technical data for the NICO Project and have
visited the NWT and Alberta sites. The updated Feasibility Study
will assess the NICO Project economics at current costs, commodity
prices, and currency exchange rates, while also incorporating
recent improvements and project optimizations that include:
- Completion of the Tlicho Highway in the NWT, eliminating
capital cost redundancies and reducing the construction schedule
for the mine and concentrator;
- Incorporation of the new brownfield Alberta site for the
Hydrometallurgical Facility and re-purposing of the 42,000 square
feet of serviced buildings on 77 acres of lands adjacent to the
Canadian National Railway;
- Proximity of the Hydrometallurgical Facility site to services
and reagents available in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, such as
process and potable water, natural gas, low-cost power, sulphuric
acid, oxygen, lime, and a commutable pool of skilled engineers and
chemical plant workers;
- Enhanced transportation logistics and reduced concentrate
haulage distances between the NWT and Alberta sites;
- A new waste residue disposal strategy for the
Hydrometallurgical Facility, including potential sequential
precipitation of a saleable gypsum by-product to reduce process
residue transportation and disposal costs;
- Incorporation of recent process optimizations to reduce capital
and operating costs and assessing the potential for improved
metallurgical recoveries from the test work programs in progress at
SGS;
- A new Resource Model with more constrained wireframe boundaries
to reduce internal and external modelling dilution and providing
better differentiation of higher-grade Mineral Resource blocks for
earlier processing;
- A new Mine Plan focused on earlier mining and processing of
higher margin ores to accelerate cash flows, together with a
stockpiling strategy to defer processing lower margin ores;
- Sensitivity analyses for processing other feed sources in the
Hydrometallurgical Facility, including intermediate products from
the Kennecott Smelter waste streams pursuant to the process
collaboration between Fortune and Rio Tinto.
About the NICO Project The NICO Project is a vertically
integrated Critical Minerals asset that Fortune has expended more
than C$138 million to advance from an in-house mineral discovery to
a near shovel-ready development. The economics for the project were
previously assessed in a positive Feasibility Study, and the
Company has secured environmental assessment approval and the major
mine permits for the facilities in the NWT.
The NICO Deposit is situated in Tlicho Territory, approximately
160 km northwest of the City of Yellowknife and 50 km north of the
community of Whati where the new Tlicho Highway currently
terminates. The deposit contains open pit and underground Proven
and Probable Mineral Reserves totaling 33.1 million tonnes
containing 1.11 million ounces of gold, 82.3 million pounds of
cobalt, 102.1 million pounds of bismuth, and 27.2 million pounds of
copper that are sufficient to support an approximate 20-year mine
life. NICO and the Company’s nearby Sue-Dianne copper deposit are
IOCG-type mineral deposits with world class global analogues,
including the ‘super giant’ Olympic Dam Deposit in South Australia.
IOCG-type deposits are typically very large copper-gold deposits
but are notably also enriched in important technology metals.
The NICO Deposit is planned to be mined primarily by
conventional truck and shovel open pit methods with a low waste to
ore strip ratio. A portion of the higher-grade Mineral Reserves are
planned to be mined by underground open stoping methods to
accelerate cash flows during early years of the mine life using the
existing ramp and underground workings from previous test mining
for access and ore haulage.
Ores from the mine will be processed by crushing, grinding and
bulk flotation methods with a low (~4%) mass pull that reduces
4,650 tonnes of daily mill throughput to approximately 180 tonnes
of bulk concentrate containing the recoverable metals. The bulk
concentrate will be subjected to re-grinding and secondary
flotation to produce gold-bearing cobalt and bismuth concentrates
for low-cost transportation by truck and rail to Alberta and
downstream processing to value-added products.
The Hydrometallurgical Facility is planned to be constructed in
Lamont County in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, approximately 30
km north of Edmonton, where the municipal planning approvals are
already in place for heavy industry. The cobalt concentrate will be
processed in an autoclave using pressure-oxidation to dissolve the
metals, followed by sequential neutralization, copper cementation,
and solvent extraction purification and crystallization of cobalt
sulphate heptahydrate. The bismuth concentrate will be processed by
ferric chloride leaching, followed by cementation, and smelting to
pour pure ingots. Gold will be recovered by leaching the autoclave
residue, followed by carbon elution and smelting to doré bars. Test
work is underway at SGS to determine if a saleable gypsum
by-product can also be produced during sequential neutralization of
the autoclave effluent to increase revenues and reduce the amount
of waste that would need to be trucked to an offsite disposal
facility.
NICO Commodities NICO is a polymetallic deposit
containing three Critical Minerals (cobalt, bismuth and copper) and
more than one million ounces of in-situ gold as a highly liquid and
countercyclical co-product to mitigate Critical Mineral price
volatility.
Cobalt is a particularly important Critical Mineral due to its
expanding consumption in the cathodes of lithium-ion rechargeable
batteries used in electric vehicles, portable electronics and
stationary storage cells. Cobalt is also used in aerospace
superalloys, cutting tools, magnets, catalysts and pigments. There
are concerns with the current sources of supply for cobalt because
of the geographic concentration of mine production in the
politically unstable and ESG-challenged Democratic Republic of the
Congo (77% of mine supply) and geopolitical risks associated with
China’s ownership of most of these mines, 80% of the world’s
refinery production, and 90% of cobalt chemical supply.
Bismuth is another Critical Mineral with a supply chain
controlled by China (~80% of the world production). Bismuth has
unique physical and chemical properties leveraged to make
automotive glass and steel coatings, paints and pigments, and brake
pads. It is also used in low melting temperature and dimensionally
stable alloys, fire depressants, and pharmaceuticals. Bismuth
consumption is increasing as an environmentally safe and non-toxic
replacement for lead in brass, solders, free machining steel and
aluminum, galvanizing alloys, glass, ceramic glazes, radiation
shielding, ammunition, and fishing weights. Bismuth-tin alloy is
used to make environmentally safe plugs to properly seal
decommissioned oil and gas wells to prevent greenhouse gas leakage,
blowouts and groundwater contamination. Manganese-bismuth magnets
are also being commercialized as a potential replacement for Rare
Earth Elements in the magnets used in electric vehicle powertrain
motors.
Fortune will be pleased to provide periodic updates on the
progress of its various metallurgical, engineering and permitting
programs.
For more detailed information about the NICO Mineral Reserves
and certain technical information in this news release, please
refer to the Technical Report on the NICO Project, entitled
"Technical Report on the Feasibility Study for the
NICO-Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper Project, Northwest Territories,
Canada", dated April 2, 2014 and prepared by Micon International
Limited which has been filed on SEDAR and is available under the
Company's profile at www.sedar.com.
The disclosure of scientific and technical information contained
in this news release have been approved by Robin Goad, M.Sc.,
P.Geo., President and Chief Executive Officer of Fortune and Alex
Mezei, M.Sc., P.Eng. Fortune’s Chief Metallurgist, who are
"Qualified Persons" under National Instrument 43-101.
About Worley Group Worley is an international
engineering, construction management and environmental services
company listed for trading on the Australian Stock Exchange.
About Fortune Minerals: Fortune is a Canadian mining
company focused on developing the NICO Cobalt-Gold-Bismuth-Copper
Project in the NWT and Alberta. Fortune also owns the satellite
Sue-Dianne Copper-Silver-Gold Deposit located 25 km north of the
NICO Deposit and a potential future source of incremental mill feed
to extend the life of the NICO concentrator.
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This press release contains forward-looking information and
forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable
securities legislation. This forward-looking information includes
statements with respect to, among other things, the exercise of the
option by the Company and the purchase of the JFSL site, the
construction of the proposed Hydrometallurgical Facility at the
JFSL site, the potential for expansion of the NICO Deposit and the
Company’s plans to develop the NICO Project. Forward-looking
information is based on the opinions and estimates of management as
well as certain assumptions at the date the information is given
(including, in respect of the forward-looking information contained
in this press release, assumptions regarding: the successful
completion of the Company’s due diligence investigations on the
JFSL site, the Company’s ability to secure the necessary financing
to fund the exercise of the option and complete the purchase of the
JFSL site, the Company’s ability to complete construction of a NICO
Project Hydrometallurgical Facility; the Company’s ability to
arrange the necessary financing to continue operations and develop
the NICO Project; the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals
for the construction and operation of the NICO Project and the
related Hydrometallurgical Facility and the timing thereof; growth
in the demand for cobalt; the time required to construct the NICO
Project; and the economic environment in which the Company will
operate in the future, including the price of gold, cobalt and
other by-product metals, anticipated costs and the volumes of
metals to be produced at the NICO Project). However, such
forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and
uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or
results to differ materially from those projected in the
forward-looking information. These factors include the risks that
the 2021 drill program may not result in a meaningful expansion of
the NICO Deposit, the Company may not be able to complete the
purchase of the JFSL site and secure a site for the construction of
a Hydrometallurgical Facility, the Company may not be able to
finance and develop NICO on favourable terms or at all,
uncertainties with respect to the receipt or timing of required
permits, approvals and agreements for the development of the NICO
Project, including the related Hydrometallurgical Facility, the
construction of the NICO Project may take longer than anticipated,
the Company may not be able to secure offtake agreements for the
metals to be produced at the NICO Project, the Sue-Dianne Property
may not be developed to the point where it can provide mill feed to
the NICO Project, the inherent risks involved in the exploration
and development of mineral properties and in the mining industry in
general, the market for products that use cobalt or bismuth may not
grow to the extent anticipated, the future supply of cobalt and
bismuth may not be as limited as anticipated, the risk of decreases
in the market prices of cobalt, bismuth and other metals to be
produced by the NICO Project, discrepancies between actual and
estimated Mineral Resources or between actual and estimated
metallurgical recoveries, uncertainties associated with estimating
Mineral Resources and Reserves and the risk that even if such
Mineral Resources prove accurate the risk that such Mineral
Resources may not be converted into Mineral Reserves once economic
conditions are applied, the Company’s production of cobalt, bismuth
and other metals may be less than anticipated and other operational
and development risks, market risks and regulatory risks. Readers
are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking
information because it is possible that predictions, forecasts,
projections and other forms of forward-looking information will not
be achieved by the Company. The forward-looking information
contained herein is made as of the date hereof and the Company
assumes no responsibility to update or revise it to reflect new
events or circumstances, except as required by law.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241007214068/en/
For further information please contact: Fortune Minerals
Limited Troy Nazarewicz Investor Relations Manager
info@fortuneminerals.com Tel: (519) 858-8188
www.fortuneminerals.com
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