Canadian mining company Fortune Minerals has secured an extension to the option to buy the JFSL Field Services brownfield site in Lamont, Alberta. The extension, the company says, is owing to “the current economic and capital market volatility”.
Fortune plans to construct a hydrometallurgical refinery at this site, a former steel fabrication plant, for its vertically integrated Nico cobalt/gold/bismuth/copper critical minerals project.
The company can acquire the JFSL site and facilities for C$5.5-million. The term of the option has now been extended in monthly increments by Fortune paying JFSL C$15 000 a month up to December 31, 2022.
During the extension period, JFSL can solicit competing offers for the facility, subject to Fortune’s right to complete its purchase on the agreed terms by the end of the month for any extension period and/or Fortune’s right of first refusal to match a competing offer.
The refinery would process metal concentrates from the planned Nico mine and concentrator in the Northwest Territories, enabling Fortune to become a vertically integrated producer of cobalt sulphate needed to make cathodes of lithium-ion batteries.
The refinery would also produce bismuth ingots and oxide, an ‘eco-metal’ used in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries.
The mineral reserves for the deposit also contain more than one-million ounces of gold, and copper as a minor by-product.
The vertically integrated Nico project is an advanced development stage critical minerals development asset that has already received environmental assessment approval and the major mine permits for the facilities in the Northwest Territories.
The project has also been assessed in positive feasibility and front-end engineering design studies that will be updated to reflect the new refinery site and recent project optimisations.