The federal and Alberta governments are providing up to $887,170 to Fortune Minerals to support metallurgical test work at the company’s NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project, 160 km northwest of Yellowknife, it was announced Tuesday.
The Government of Canada’s funding contribution will be a maximum of $714,500 for Fortune Minerals’ planned cobalt sulphate process pilot and other metallurgical test work.
Meanwhile, the Alberta provincial government is chipping in up to $172,670 toward the mineral exploration company’s costs under the Clean Resources Continuous Intake Program. Fortune Minerals stated that those funds will be used to “support a mini-pilot at SGS Canada Ltd. to confirm certain process design criteria and improvements to the NICO project metallurgical processes.”
Fortune Minerals is proposing to transport its NICO ore to a refinery in Alberta, but it has been searching for funds to acquire a site in the Edmonton industrial area.
The company is mired in debt and also addressed that situation on Tuesday, announcing a loan extension with creditors until Dec. 31, 2024. That means the deferral of a total of $9.4 million in debt with an interest rate of 10 per cent compounding monthly while its debentures and term loans carry nine per cent interest annually.