Name and Location
NICO gold/cobalt/bismuth/copper mine project, 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-million tonnes, containing 1 085 000 oz of gold, 82-million pounds of cobalt, 102-million pounds of bismuth and 27-million pounds of copper. At the planned mill throughput rate of 4 650 t/d of ore, the mineral reserves will sustain operations for 19.8 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 retreat blasthole open stoping using a contractor, providing access to gold-rich, higher-grade ores.

The ore will be processed in two stages at the NICO site and Saskatchewan metals processing plant (SMPP) respectively. 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. At the SMPP, the bulk 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 by ion exchange and the cobalt 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 by 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 by atmospheric acid leach, followed by electrowinning to produce 99.5% bismuth cathode, which is melted and poured to make 99.99% bismuth ingots.

Net Presents Value/Internal Rate of Return
Not stated.

Value
The overall capital cost of the project is estimated at C$441-million.

Duration
According to the National Instrument 43-101 technical report completed on the project in July 2012, the mine production schedule assumes that openpit waste stripping will begin in July 2015, openpit ore production in September 2015, underground dewatering and rehabilitation of existing workings in May 2016, underground ore and waste development in June 2016 and underground stoping in July 2016.

Underground ore production will end in January 2017, while openpit ore production will end in 2035.

Latest Developments
Fortune Minerals is pursuing financing solutions and offtake agreements for its Nico gold/cobalt/bismuth/copper project.

The mine and the refinery have received the necessary environmental assessment approvals and, with the key permits in place, construction activities can start as soon as project financing is secured, Fortune Minerals investor relations manager Troy Nazarewicz has said.

He says the Saskatchewan government, when approving the environmental assessment for the refinery, made a determination that any risks associated with processing the concentrate from Fortune’s planned mine and mill, located north-west of Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories, will be mitigated so that no significant adverse environmental effects will be experienced.

Nazarewicz says Fortune Minerals, which owns the land on which the refinery will be built, will soon begin the rezoning process in preparation for construction of the facility.

He has added that the project is set to stand out as a North American asset dedicated to the production of cobalt chemicals needed to manufacture high-performance, lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries “in a market that is dominated by mine supplies from the Democratic Republic of Congo and refinery production in China”.

Nazarewicz explains that there is also an opportunity to source materials from other mines for custom processing. “The potential to participate in custom processing and recycling could extend the useful life of the refinery well beyond the expected 20-year mine life for the Nico deposit.”

He further notes that the project will benefit from being a Canadian supplier that sells  into the North American and European Union markets, with lower transportation costs and exemptions from excise duties and tariffs, as a result of trade relationships, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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.