A flurry of announcements from Fortune Minerals bodes well for its NICO project in the NWT. 

Company releases in May confirmed an injection of a $16.2 million historic cross-border investment from both US and Canadian governments for its proposed cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper critical minerals project near Whati. 

Now in the advanced development stage, the project will include an open pit/underground mine and concentrator in the NWT, and a related hydrometallurgical refinery in Alberta.  Fortune previously secured $887,170 in funding from the Alberta and Canadian governments. 

The company also owns the satellite Sue-Dianne copper-silver-gold deposit north of its NICO deposit which could be a future source of incremental mill feed to extend the life of the NICO mill and concentrator.

Fortune Minerals collects ore samples from its NICO critical minerals project   

Speaking to Investing News Network (INN), Fortune President and CEO, Robin Goad said he believes the cross-border NICO project can tick a lot of boxes in the quest to secure critical minerals.

“It’s a vertically integrated project. We intend our materials to be mined, processed and made available to support North American manufacturing.” 

The NICO project is primarily a cobalt-gold deposit. Cobalt, in particular, is notable given its growing consumption in lithium-ion batteries powering the transition to e-mobility. NICO, however, also features the largest known deposit of bismuth in the world – approximately 12% of the current world reserves. Recognized as an environmentally friendly mineral, the value of bismuth is on the rise with the increasing importance of manganese-bismuth magnets and its significance as an element in plugging decommissioned oil and gas wells. 

The NWT’s proposed NICO mine also boasts an estimated one million ounces of gold.