3 April 2024
Toronto, Ontario, April 3, 2024 – Canadian North Resources Inc. (“CNRI” or “the Company,” TSXV: CNRI; OTCQX: CNRSF; FSE: EO0 (E-O-zero)) is pleased to report encouraging results from its series of flotation bench tests of various domains of mineralized samples obtained from its 100% owned Ferguson Lake Project (“Ferguson Lake Project”) in Nunavut, Canada which were conducted during 2023. The program and results are built upon metallurgical testing that completed by the Company in 2016.
“The consideration of this flotation flowsheet could significantly improve the economic potential and viability of the Ferguson Lake project.” Said Dr. Trevor Boyd, the Technical Advisor and QP of the Company, “It provides a roadmap forward in its development. The test results also demonstrate more options are available for the continued improvement of the metal concentrates and recoveries.”
The Company believes that this flotation-gravity flowsheet could be a low-capital-cost option for the potential mine development of the Ferguson Lake Project, although the metal recoveries are lower than hydrometallurgy. Much effort has been devoted to the hydrometallurgical tests historically and by the Company, and the results demonstrated very high (>90%) recoveries for copper, nickel, cobalt, palladium and platinum from the massive sulfide materials. Alternatively, hydrometallurgy could be a technically highly effective option for the mine development of the Ferguson Lake Project, of which the capital and operating costs are higher.
Based on these results, in 2024, the Company plans to continue to conduct follow-up investigations of both flotation and hydrometallurgical processes, including new technologies such as bio-hydrometallurgy, for the extraction of metals for the Ferguson Lake Project. The Company will focus on the low-carbon footprint and green energy options for the project development.
The 2023 test work program was completed on two domain types of sample material selected from the 2022 CNRI diamond drilling program containing semi-massive to stringer to disseminated sulphide mineralization with sample head grades, as shown in Table 1. These samples are compared to the high-grade massive sulphide bulk sample material used in the 2016 testing program. All the testing programs were completed at the SGS Canada Inc. Lakefield facility in Ontario.