VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board has completed an environmental assessment of the Tlicho all-season road project, proposed by the Northwest Territories government, subject to 23 measures to reduce its environmental, social and cultural impacts.
The conditional approval was issued last week, enabling construction of the 97 km Tlicho road to connect the community of Whati to the territorial highway system.
The road will connect with a 49 km spur road proposed by TSX-listed project developer Fortune Minerals, which has already received environmental assessment approval. The spur road will run from Whati to Fortune's proposed Nico cobalt/gold/bismuth/copper mine project. Together, these roads will allow Fortune to transport metal concentrates from the Nico mine to its proposed refinery in Saskatchewan for downstream processing to cobalt sulphate, gold, bismuth ingots and oxide, and copper precipitate to support the growing green economy.
Fortune announced in November 2017 that it would study a proposed 20% to 30% increase in production at Nico in response to feedback from potential strategic partners. The company is busy with an update of the 2014 feasibility study for the Nico mine, looking 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.
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, the mineral reserves will sustain operations for about 21 years.
More than $115-million of work has already been conducted for the Nico project, and Fortune has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance to help secure the required C$589-million-plus pre-production capital.