11 July 2018
Fortune Minerals Limited is pleased to provide an update on the progress of environmental work and rezoning efforts needed to support construction of the NICO Cobalt-Gold-Bismuth-Copper Project in Canada. The 100% owned NICO Project is a development stage primary cobalt asset consisting of a planned mine, mill and concentrator in the Northwest Territories and hydrometallurgical refinery in Saskatchewan to process concentrates from the mine to cobalt sulphate, gold, bismuth and copper. Environmental work to support the water license issued by the Wek'èezhìi Land and Water Board is being carried out for the NWT site. The company is also advancing the rezoning of lands it owns near Langham, Saskatchewan to enable construction of the hydrometallurgical refinery. Fortune has already received its Environmental Assessment approvals for both the NWT and Saskatchewan sites and is working to secure project financing.
The Wek'èezhìi Land and Water Board issued a Land Use Permit and approved the Type A Water License required to construct and operate the NICO Project mine and concentrator in 2014.
In 2017, with the assistance of Tlicho residents from the community of Whati, Fortune completed the study design outlined in the Supplemental Baseline Monitoring Plan that is a requirement of the water license. This work included additional studies on hydrology, water quality, benthic invertebrates, sediment chemistry, fish population and fish flesh chemistry in the Marian River and lakes near the NICO Project mine site in the NWT. The data collected has since been analyzed and compiled into the Aquatic Baseline Summary Report which was submitted to the WLWB on June 19, 2018. This report will be an integral part of the Aquatic Effects Monitoring Plan for operations and requires approval from the WLWB prior to construction.