Name of the Project
NICO gold/cobalt/bismuth/copper mine project.

Location
About 50 km north of the Tlicho community of Whati and 160 km north-west of Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Project Owner/s
Canadian exploration and development company Fortune Minerals.

Project Description
The NICO project is a development-stage primary cobalt asset consisting of a planned mine, mill and concentrator, in the Northwest Territories, and a hydrometallurgical refinery, in Saskatchewan, to process concentrates from the mine into cobalt sulphate, gold, bismuth ingot and oxide, as well as a copper precipitate.

The deposit contains openpit and underground proven and probable mineral reserves totalling 33.1-million tonnes containing 1 085 000 oz of gold, 82.3-million pounds of cobalt, 102.1-million pounds of bismuth and 27.2-million pounds of copper.

The project’s previous study is now out of date, and several participants from that study are assisting with an update. 

According to the project’s 2014 feasibility study, the mineral reserves will sustain operations for 21 years at the planned mill throughput rate of 4 650 t/d of ore.

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 a contractor using retreat blasthole open stoping, 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. At the site, an average of 4 650 t/d of ore will be processed in a crushing, grinding and flotation concentrator to produce about 180 t/d of wet bulk concentrate.

Construction of the NICO mine and concentrator is planned using the existing winter ice road, but all-season road access is required for mine operations. The Tlicho road will be a permanent 97 km highway, extending north from Highway 3 to Whatı. Fortune has received environmental assessment approval to build a road from Whatı to the mine site.

Potential Job Creation
Fortune's proposed hydrometallurgical plant will provide employment for 80 to 90 full-time employees, with a payroll of about $9-million a year. Using a typical employment multiplier, this will result in two additional indirect jobs for every employee, creating another 170 jobs in the region.

The contracting opportunities during construction are estimated at $76-million, with operational expenditure of about $25-million a year, totalling about $525-million over the current life-of-mine estimate.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
According to the 2014 feasibility study, the project has a levered pretax net present value, at a 7% discount rate, of $254-million in the base case, and an internal rate of return of 15.6%.

Capital Expenditure
The 2014 feasibility estimated capital expenditure at C$589-million, including working capital.

Planned Start /End Date
Construction of the NICO project mine and concentrator is expected to take two years after project financing is secured. The refinery construction is expected to take 18 months and will be built concurrently. The project could be commissioned in three years after receipt of the requisite funding.

Latest Developments
Testwork, engineering, an updated feasibility study and permitting programmes are progressing.

Fortune has been awarded about C$17-million in nondilutive contribution funding from the US Department of Defense (DoD), Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), and Alberta Innovates to help finance the work needed to bring the NICO project to a project finance and construction decision.

Fortune has retained Worley Canada to lead the engineering for an updated feasibility study, assessing the economics of the NICO project at current costs and commodity prices.

The feasibility study is being supported by funding from the US DoD and NRCan’s Global Partnerships Initiative (GPI). The updated study will incorporate several improvements identified by Fortune and Worley to deliver a more financially robust development.

Worley has also completed value enhancement studies, reviewed the company’s historical flotation testwork and piloting data, and identified opportunities to use Jameson flotation cells to recover additional fine, 5 µm to 20 µm gold and bismuth particles from NICO deposit ores.

A carbon column is being designed into the secondary flotation circuit to capture the estimated 5% of gold that previously would have been dissolved and lost during bismuth and cobalt separation. Fortune is also exploring other options to reduce potential gold losses during the processing of high-grade, gold-rich ores.

Meanwhile, Worley has realigned the NICO access road design to reduce construction costs and has completed the process flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation diagrams, and mass balance for the Northwest Territories concentrator.

As part of ongoing feasibility study improvements, Worley is updating concentrator and hydrometallurgical facility designs to advance the vertically integrated development.

For testwork, material has been shipped to SGS for metallurgical testing and piloting. 

Phase 2 of the programme, consisting of crushing, grinding and bulk and secondary flotation, was successfully completed in the third quarter of 2024, producing gold-bearing cobalt and bismuth concentrates for hydrometallurgical testing.

Phase 3 hydrometallurgical work is under way, with results exceeding the company’s expectations. Ferric chloride leaching of bismuth concentrate, followed by cementation and purification tests, achieved 97% bismuth recoveries, producing a cement grading of up to 95% bismuth and averaging about 0.2% iron as the main impurity.

This data supports the bismuth circuit process design criteria, reducing leaching residence time by 66%, from three hours to one hour. These design improvements are expected to significantly reduce the size, capital and operating costs for the bismuth circuit in the hydrometallurgical plant.

The results also indicate a 2% higher bismuth recovery than initially estimated for the bismuth leaching and cementation circuits.

Fortune has retained XPS Industry Relevant Solutions to conduct the smelting and refining aspects of the bismuth testwork and complete the design of the bismuth pyrometallurgical circuit.

A preliminary pressure oxidation (POX) test on the cobalt concentrate was recently completed, with more comprehensive cobalt processing tests planned for the first quarter of 2025. The cobalt testwork will include optimisation of sequential gypsum precipitation to validate the production of a gypsum by-product from autoclave effluent.

If successful, this by-product would provide a significant revenue boost for the hydrometallurgical facility and reduce waste disposal costs for process residues.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
Hatch, P&E Mining Consultants; Micon International (updated technical report on 2014 feasibility study); Worley Canada (updated feasibility study); and XPS Industry Relevant Solutions (smelting and refining of the bismuth testwork, and design of bismuth pyrometallurgical circuit).

Contact Details for Project Information
Fortune Minerals, tel +1 519 858 8188, fax +1 519 858 8155 or email info@fortuneminerals.com.