The Northwest Territories government has signed an agreement with North Star Infrastructure to construct the Tlicho all-season road to the community of Whati, 50 km south of TSX-listed Fortune Minerals’ proposed Nico cobalt/gold/bismuth/copper mine.
As part of its proposed development, Fortune plans to construct a spur road to connect with the Tlicho road in order to enable concentrates produced from the mine to be transported south for processing to value-added products. These include cobalt chemicals needed to manufacture lithium-ion rechargeable batteries to power electric vehicles, portable electronic devices and stationary cells to make electricity use more efficient.
Fortune owns lands in Saskatchewan where it plans to construct a refinery to process Nico concentrates.
Construction of the 97 km Tlicho road will begin this year and will be completed in 2022. The two-lane gravel highway will extend north from Highway 3 to Whati and will cost C$213.8-million to construct.
The government of Canada is providing up to 25% of these costs through the P3 Canada Fund. The Northwest Territories government is funding the remaining 75%, using a private-public partnership structure with North Star, a consortium consisting of Kiewit Canada Development Corp and the Tlicho government, together with design-build partners Peter Kiewit Sons, Hatch Corporation, and Thurber Engineering.
The Nico mine could be Canada’s first primary cobalt mine.