Fortune Minerals and Rio Tinto Collaborate to Expand North American Critical Minerals Production - Seite 2

Rio Tinto Kennecott Managing Director Nate Foster commented, “We are committed to find better ways to provide the materials the world needs to grow and decarbonize. We are enthusiastic about this partnership with Fortune Minerals as we continue looking at our waste streams to develop new, sustainable sources of critical minerals here in North America.”

Rio Tinto is a multinational diversified mining company with a global footprint that includes the world-class Kennecott integrated operations outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A. For 120 years, Kennecott has been mining and processing copper and other minerals including gold, silver, molybdenum and tellurium from the rich ore body of the Bingham Canyon Mine.

Fortune is developing its 100 percent owned, vertically integrated NICO Cobalt-Gold-Bismuth-Copper Project in Canada. This Critical Minerals asset is comprised of a planned mine, mill and concentrator in the Northwest Territories and a related hydrometallurgical refinery in Alberta where concentrates from the mine would be processed.

Fortune and Rio Tinto are working together to assess different process methods and technology options to recover the bismuth and cobalt contained in Kennecott’s smelter waste streams. This includes assessing the effectiveness of blending Rio Tinto’s intermediate products with NICO Project concentrates and conducting batch recovery tests using Fortune’s refinery flow sheets.

About Fortune Minerals:

Fortune is a Canadian mining company focused on developing the vertically integrated NICO Cobalt-Gold-Bismuth-Copper Critical Minerals project in the Northwest Territories and Alberta. The NICO Project consists of a planned open pit and underground mine and concentrator and a related refinery in Alberta where the Company will process concentrates from the mine to value added metals and chemicals. The NICO Project is an advanced development stage asset that has received environmental assessment approval and the major mine permits for the Northwest Territories facilities. The NICO Project has been assessed in positive Feasibility and Front-End Engineering and Design studies that will be updated to reflect recent project optimizations and the new proposed refinery site in Alberta.