3 May 2019
Fortune has been in discussions with potential strategic partners and buyers for both of its cobalt and bismuth concentrates. Some of these potential buyers could not recover the gold that was contained in the concentrates and Fortune therefore needed to demonstrate that it could recover the gold at the mine site. This option has now been successfully validated.
Metallurgical test work was completed at the Lakefield, Ontario facilities of SGS Canada Ltd. ("SGS"), where most of the NICO testing and pilot work has been conducted. The current work was performed to confirm earlier tests that were carried out by Dundee Sustainable Technologies last summer that had indicated attractive gold recoveries could be achieved by cyanidation of metal concentrates. The subsequent SGS program included both gravity and flotation tests to determine gold recovery into the bulk concentrate and confirmed that gravity will recover additional gold that was not captured by bulk flotation. The combined gravity and bulk flotation tests indicated an 88% recovery from higher grade ores of approximately 5 grams of gold per tonne. This improved gold recovery from higher grade ores is being incorporated into the grade recovery model for the deposit and would be applicable to both the sale of concentrate option and the vertically integrated development option.