Toronto-listed Fortune Minerals has extended the option to purchase the JFSL Field Services (JFSL) brownfield industrial site in Lamont county, Alberta.
Fortune plans to construct a hydrometallurgical refinery at this site to process concentrates from its NICO cobalt/gold/bismuth/copper deposit and planned mine and concentrator in the Northwest Territories.
The NICO project will produce three metals identified on Canada’s critical minerals list needed in the energy transition and new technologies, being cobalt, bismuth and copper. In addition, the mineral reserves for NICO also contain more than one-million ounces of gold.
Fortune can maintain the refinery site option under the same terms and conditions that are currently in place, and acquire the facilities for C$5.5-million before March 31, 2024.
JFSL has the right to solicit competing offers for the facility during the option period, subject to Fortune’s right to complete its purchase at the end of each month of extension at the agreed purchase price and/or exercise its right of first refusal to match the competing offer.
Meanwhile, Fortune closed a private placement of 22-million units in late December to fund a metallurgical test work programme to validate some process optimisations and provide additional information for detailed engineering. The units raised gross proceeds of C$880 000.
Fortune is waiting for the government ice road from Whati to Gameti to open, which would enable the company to truck ore samples from its existing stockpiles at the NICO site to SGS Canada in Lakefield, Ontario for the planned test work programme.