Fortune Minerals Extends Option to Acquire JFSL Alberta Refinery Site for the NICO Critical Minerals Project
27 Julho 2023 - 11:54AM
Business Wire
Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQB: FTMDF)
(“Fortune” or the “Company”)
(www.fortuneminerals.com) is pleased to report that it has secured
an additional extension to the option to purchase the JFSL Field
Services ULC (“JFSL”) brownfield industrial site in Lamont
County, Alberta (see news release, dated January 24, 2022). Fortune
plans to construct a hydrometallurgical refinery at this site to
process concentrates from the Company’s NICO
cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper critical minerals deposit and planned
mine and concentrator in the Northwest Territories (“NWT”)
(collectively, “the NICO Project”). The JFSL site consists
of 76.78 acres of lands in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland northeast
of Edmonton and has 42,000 square feet of serviced shops and
buildings adjacent to the Canadian National Railway. The facilities
are close to sources of process water, natural gas, power oxygen,
sulphuric acid, lime and other reagents needed to operate the
refinery as well as a commutable pool of engineers and skilled
chemical plant workers from the local petrochemicals industry.
These are expected to materially reduce capital and operating costs
for the NICO Project.
Fortune can maintain the option by paying JFSL C$15,000 per
month and can acquire the facilities for C$5.5 million before
December 31, 2023. JFSL’s has the right to solicit competing offers
for the facility during the option period, subject to Fortune’s
right to complete its purchase at the end of each month of
extension at the agreed purchase price and/or exercise its right of
first refusal to match the competing offer. If Fortune exercises
the option to purchase the refinery site, the extension payments
will be applied against the purchase price. JFSL is a subsidiary of
Worley Group (“Worley”), a major international engineering
services and construction management company. As partial
consideration for the extension, Worley will also be a preferred
contractor with respect to development of Fortune’s refinery. In
addition, JFSL will have the right to continue using the site as a
licensee while Fortune completes the permitting required to
construct and operate the refinery.
The NICO Project is a planned vertically integrated development
that would produce three metals identified on Canada’s Critical
Minerals List needed in the energy transition and new technologies,
being cobalt, bismuth and copper. The Minerals reserves for the
NICO deposit also contains more than one million ounces of gold.
Fortune plans to produce cobalt sulphate needed to make the
cathodes of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries to store energy in
electric vehicles (“EV’s”), portable electronics and
stationary storage cells. While the NICO Project is primarily a
cobalt-gold asset by projected revenues, it is also the largest
bismuth deposit in the world with 12% of global reserves and the
Company plans to produce metal ingots and oxide products. Bismuth
is used in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries and has
growing consumption as a ‘Eco-metal’ and environmentally safe and
non-toxic replacement for lead. Bismuth also has growing demand in
decommissioning and remediating abandoned oil and gas wells with
installation of an environmentally safe, permanent plug that
prevents greenhouse gas leakage, groundwater migration that can
contaminate aquifers, and mitigating blowouts like the Deepwater
Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Department of
Energy also recently validated the performance of manganese-bismuth
magnets as a superior, lower cost, and environmentally safer
alternative to Rare Earth Elements used in electric motor magnets
that power EV’s.
The NICO Project is an advanced development stage Critical
Minerals asset that has already received environmental assessment
approval and the major mine permits for the facilities in the NWT.
It has also been assessed in positive Feasibility and Front-End
Engineering and Design (“FEED”) studies that will be updated
to reflect the new refinery site and recent project
optimizations.
For more detailed information about the NICO Mineral Reserves
and certain technical information in this news release, please
refer to the Technical Report on the NICO Project, entitled
"Technical Report on the Feasibility Study for the
NICO-Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper Project, Northwest Territories,
Canada", dated April 2, 2014 and prepared by Micon International
Limited which has been filed on SEDAR and is available under the
Company's profile at www.sedar.com. The disclosure of scientific
and technical information contained in this news release has been
approved by Robin Goad, M.Sc., P.Geo., President and Chief
Executive Officer of Fortune, who is a "Qualified Person" under
National Instrument 43-101.
About Fortune Minerals: Fortune is a Canadian mining
company focused on developing the NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper
critical minerals project in the NWT and Alberta. Fortune also owns
the satellite Sue-Dianne copper-silver-gold deposit located 25 km
north of the NICO Deposit and is a potential future source of
incremental mill feed to extend the life of the NICO mill and
concentrator.
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@FortuneMineral on Twitter.
This press release contains forward-looking information and
forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable
securities legislation. This forward-looking information includes
statements with respect to, among other things, the exercise by the
Company of its option to purchase of the JFSL site, the successful
construction and completion of the proposed hydrometallurgical
refinery at the JFSL site, and the Company’s plans to develop the
NICO Project, including the successful the development and
construction of the planned NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper mine
and concentrator. Forward-looking information is based on the
opinions and estimates of management as well as certain assumptions
at the date the information is given (including, in respect of the
forward-looking information contained in this press release,
assumptions regarding: the successful completion of the Company’s
due diligence investigations on the JFSL site, the Company’s
ability to secure the necessary financing to fund the exercise of
the option and complete the purchase of the JFSL site, the
Company’s ability to complete construction of a NICO Project
refinery; the Company’s ability to arrange the necessary financing
to continue operations and develop the NICO Project; the receipt of
all necessary regulatory approvals for the construction and
operation of the NICO Project, including the planned NICO
cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper mine and concentrator and the timing
thereof; growth in the demand for cobalt; the time required to
construct the NICO Project; and the economic environment in which
the Company will operate in the future, including the price of
gold, cobalt and other by-product metals, anticipated costs and the
volumes of metals to be produced at the NICO Project). However,
such forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks
and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events
or results to differ materially from those projected in the
forward-looking information. These factors include the risks that
global geopolitical situations may interfere with the Company’s
ability to continue development of the NICO Project, the Company
may not be able to complete the purchase of the JFSL site and
secure a site for the construction of a refinery, the Company may
not be able to finance and develop NICO on favourable terms or at
all, uncertainties with respect to the receipt or timing of
required permits, approvals and agreements for the development of
the NICO Project, including the related hydrometallurgical
refinery, the construction of the NICO Project may take longer than
anticipated, the Company may not be able to secure offtake
agreements for the metals to be produced at the NICO Project, the
Sue-Dianne Property may not be developed to the point where it can
provide mill feed to the NICO Project, the inherent risks involved
in the exploration and development of mineral properties and in the
mining industry in general, the market for products that use cobalt
or bismuth may not grow to the extent anticipated, the future
supply of cobalt and bismuth may not be as limited as anticipated,
the risk of decreases in the market prices of cobalt, bismuth and
other metals to be produced by the NICO Project, discrepancies
between actual and estimated Mineral Resources or between actual
and estimated metallurgical recoveries, uncertainties associated
with estimating Mineral Resources and Reserves and the risk that
even if such Mineral Resources prove accurate the risk that such
Mineral Resources may not be converted into Mineral Reserves once
economic conditions are applied, the Company’s production of
cobalt, bismuth and other metals may be less than anticipated and
other operational and development risks, market risks and
regulatory risks. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance
on forward-looking information because it is possible that
predictions, forecasts, projections and other forms of
forward-looking information will not be achieved by the Company.
The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the
date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or
revise it to reflect new events or circumstances, except as
required by law.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230727162713/en/
Fortune Minerals Limited Troy Nazarewicz Investor
Relations Manager info@fortuneminerals.com Tel: (519) 858-8188
www.fortuneminerals.com
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