Fortune Minerals Welcomes Canada’s C$3.8 Billion Critical Minerals Strategy to Support Domestic EV Supply Chains

Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQB: FTMDF) (“Fortune” or the “Company”) (www.fortuneminerals.com) is pleased to report on the C$3.8 billion of financial support for Critical Minerals announced in last week’s Government of Canada budget for 2022 (“2022 Budget”). The funds are being allocated to accelerate domestic production and processing of Critical Minerals, particularly cobalt, nickel and lithium used in the manufacture of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (“EV’s”), portable electronics, and stationary storage cells to make electricity use more eficient. Fortune’s 100%-owned NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project (“NICO Project”) is a vertically integrated Critical Minerals development comprised of a planned open pit and underground mine and mill in Canada’s Northwest Territories (“NWT”) and a planned hydrometallurgical refinery in Alberta. The NICO Project is one of the few advanced cobalt development assets in the world that can be developed in the timelines required to meet current cathode chemistries and will benefit from implementation of these programs. The Mineral Reserves for the NICO deposit also include 1.1 million ounces of gold, 12% of global bismuth reserves, and copper as a minor by-product.

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The 2022 Budget recognizes the importance of a stronger domestic raw material supply chain for North American industries involved in the transition to new technologies and the growing green economy. Greater geographic vertical integration of raw material supplies will capture more value-added processing in Canada, reduce risks and costs associated with long and unreliable supply chains, and will provide munafacturers with a transparent source of Critical Minerals produced with Canadian environmental-social governance (“ESG”) values. Critical Mineral developments can be encumbered by higher capital costs due to the requirement for downstream process plants that come with additional permitting and regulatory risks. Some northern projects are also impacted by an infrastructure deficit that requires additional investment by companies to construct their own facilities. The 2022 Budget provides financial supports to address many of these concerns.