Fortune Minerals (TSX: FT) has entered into a binding offer letter for a loan of C$3.8 million ($2.7 million) from Prosper NWT, a public agency of Canada’s Northwest Territories.
The loan will enable Fortune to complete its purchase of a refinery and existing infrastructure in Lamont County, Alberta, where the company plans to construct a hydrometallurgical facility to process concentrates from its flagship NICO project in NWT.
NICO is an advanced-stage asset consisting of a proposed open pit and underground mine and concentrator. Anchoring the mine is a cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper deposit containing 33.1 million tonnes in reserves at grades of 0.11% cobalt, 1.03 g/t gold, 0.14% bismuth and 0.04% copper.
In March, the critical minerals developer secured additional funding from both the Canadian and US governments to support the NICO project’s development.
The domestic funding, courtesy of Natural Resources Canada, amounts to C$7.5 million ($5.5 million), is expected to cover 75% of the C$10 million in additional engineering and testwork for the project. Separately, the company was awarded $6.38 million by the US Department of Defense to expand the capacity and production of cobalt for the battery and high-strength alloy supply chain.
For the NWT loan, Fortune’s Alberta-based subsidiary will provide the refinery site, buildings and equipment as security. The loan will also be guaranteed by the company.
“With this key Alberta refinery site secured, Fortune will be able to move the vertically integrated NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper critical minerals project closer to a construction decision, while also removing a significant development risk,” Fortune Minerals CEO Robin Goad said in a news release.
“We are grateful for this financial commitment from Prosper NWT, demonstrating the importance of the critical minerals industry to the economy of Canada’s North,” Goad added.
The refinery site comprises over 76 acres of land adjacent to the Canadian National Railway in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, an association of five municipalities northeast of Edmonton with the planning approvals already in place for industrial development and tax incentives keyed to capital investment.
Source: MINING.COM – Read More
