Fortune Receives TOR For NICO Project

 

LONDON, ON - Fortune Minerals Limited reported that it has received the draft terms of reference (TOR) from the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (MVEIRB) for the environmental assessment (EA) for the Company's NICO Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper project in the Northwest Territories. Receipt of the draft TOR is a significant milestone in the permitting process to develop the NICO project. With the first half of the EA process nearly complete, the Company is well positioned to move efficiently through the analytical phase of the EA.

The TOR outlines the environmental, engineering and socio-economic information that the company will be required to address in the EA. Fortune Minerals has already compiled the baseline environmental and engineering data required to characterize the pre-development conditions at the NICO site and assess the impacts from its proposed development.

The NICO Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper project is located 160 km northwest of the City of Yellowknife, 50 km north of the Tlicho community of Whati, and 80 km north of the highway to Edmonton, Alberta. Fortune Minerals is permitting a combined open pit and underground mine to feed a conventional crushing, grinding and flotation mill, and related infrastructure at the NICO site to recover gold, cobalt, bismuth and copper in a bulk flotation concentrate. This concentrate will be trucked to the rail head at Hay River, Northwest Territories for delivery by rail to a refinery the Company will construct in southern Canada where it will produce gold and high purity cobalt, bismuth and copper cathodes (metals). The comapny is in negotiations with various landowners to purchase the property for this southern hydrometallurgical facility from a short list of sites in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Fortune has already purchased the Golden Giant Mine buildings and equipment at Hemlo, Ontario from Newmont Canada Limited. These assets have been dismantled and are being stored at the Hemlo site for re-location to NICO upon receipt of the requisite permits. The NICO project has been assessed in a definitive feasibility study that shows an attractive rate of return for the development and has been successfully test mined and pilot plant processed to verify the mining and process conditions and reduce project risk.