Name of the Project
NICO gold/cobalt/bismuth/copper mine project.

Location
Northwest Territories, Canada.

Client
Fortune Minerals.

Project Description
The proposed NICO mine is located 50 km north of the Tlicho community of Whati and 160 km north-west of Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The NICO deposit contains openpit and underground proven and probable mineral reserves totalling 33.1-million tonnes, containing 1 085 000 oz of gold, 82.3-million pounds of cobalt, 102.1-million pounds of bismuth and 27.2-million pounds of copper. At the planned mill throughput rate of 4 650 t/d of ore, the mineral reserves will sustain operations for 21 years.

Openpit methods will be used, with underground ores contributing 22% of the mill feed during the second year of operations. The openpit part of the mine will be a conventional truck-and-shovel/loader operation, accomplished in four phases at an average waste-to-ore strip ratio of 3.0:1.

The underground portion of the mine will be mined by a contractor using retreat blasthole open stoping, providing access for gold-rich, higher-grade ores.

The ore will be processed in two stages at the NICO site and Saskatchewan metals processing plant (SMPP). At the NICO site, an average of 4 650 dry tonnes a day of ore will be processed in a crushing, grinding and flotation concentrator to produce about 180 t/d of wet bulk concentrate.

The bulk concentrate will be bagged and transported by truck to Hay River, Northern Territories, for transfer to rail and delivery to Fortune’s proposed SMPP on the CN main line, near Saskatoon, where the concentrate will undergo additional grinding and flotation to produce separate gold-bearing cobalt and bismuth concentrates.

The cobalt concentrate will be processed by pressure acid leach in an autoclave to dissolve the metals. The pregnant solution that is produced will be treated with lime sequential neutralisation to remove impurities and then with sodium carbonate to precipitate cobalt carbonate. This carbonate is releached in sulphuric acid to a produce cobalt sulphate solution, which is purified further through ion exchange. The cobalt is precipitated using electrowinning to cobalt cathode that is 99.8% purity.

Alternatively, the cobalt that is present as a sulphate in solution can be processed further through solvent extraction to remove metal impurities, followed by crystallisation, to generate 20.9% cobalt sulphate heptahydrate crystals.

Copper that is removed from the cobalt solution during neutralisation is releached in acid and precipitated onto iron fines as a copper metal precipitate or ‘cement’.

The bismuth concentrate is treated using atmospheric acid leach, followed by electrowinning to produce 99.5% bismuth cathode, which is melted and poured to produce 99.99% bismuth ingots.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
Not stated.

Value
C$589-million-plus working capital.

Duration
Not stated.

Latest Developments
Fortune Minerals plans to increase the production rate at its flagship Nico cobalt/gold/bismuth/copper project by between 20% and 30%, in response to feedback from potential strategic partners, the company has said.

Fortune, currently updating the 2014 feasibility study for the Nico mine, has plans to expand the previous base case production rate of 4 650 t/d to lift cobalt output to between 1 700 t/y and 2 000 t/y, the top end of which will reflect about 2% of global production.

The feasibility update will also re-evaluate the mineral reserves using higher cobalt prices and greater economies of scale from a higher production rate optimise the mine plan and schedule to increase cobalt and gold output in the early years, implement a grade control and stockpiling strategy to better align bismuth output with market conditions as they evolve within a growing green economy, complete further metallurgical testwork to improve the manganese removal process from cobalt sulphate and indicate a potential cobalt recovery improvement, and study an improved copper cementation process.

Further, Fortune is undertaking design engineering and costing for the expanded scenario and it will also consider t refining the project plan to build the Northwest Territories facilities using existing winter roads to better align mine operations with the timeline for construction of the government road to Whati.

As it stands, the shovel-ready NICO deposit contains openpit and underground proven and probable reserves totalling 33-million tonnes containing 82-million pounds of cobalt, 102-million pounds of bismuth, 1.1-million ounces of gold, and 27-million pounds of copper. At the previously planned mill throughput rate of 4 650 t/d, the mineral reserves will sustain operations for about 21 years.

More than $115-million of work has been undertaken for the NICO project, and Fortune has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance to help secure the required C$589-million-plus mine capital.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Fortune Minerals investor relations manager Troy Nazarewicz, tel +1 519 858 8188, fax +1 519 858 8155 or email info@fortuneminerals.com.