Improved economics at lower commodity price assumptions to advance project financing

Issued Capital: 150,526,976

LONDON, ON, April 2, 2014 /CNW/ - Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQX: FTMDF) ("Fortune" or the "Company") (www.fortuneminerals.com) is pleased to announce the results of an updated Feasibility Study report by Micon International Limited ("Micon") for Fortune's 100% owned NICO gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper project. NICO is a planned vertically integrated project consisting of an open pit and underground mine and mill near Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories ("NT") and a hydrometallurgical refinery near Saskatoon - the Saskatchewan Metals Processing Plant ("SMPP"), where Fortune will process concentrates from the mine to high value metal products. Both sites have already received the environmental assessment ("EA") approvals in their respective jurisdictions and are now in the final permitting phase.

This updated Feasibility Study was prepared by Micon in order to document a number of improvements that have been made to the NICO project over the past year and to provide a comprehensive document to support negotiations currently underway for project financing with potential strategic partners and their banks. It updates the economics for the project from the 2012 front-end engineering and design ("FEED") study by Jacobs Minerals Canada Inc. ("Jacobs") and other engineering companies, which is summarized in a technical report by P&E Mining Consultants Inc. ("P&E") and other engineering companies filed on the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com) (see Fortune news release, dated July 2, 2012). Areas where improvements have been made include: the inclusion of additional gold-rich reserves to be accessed from underground outside of the open pit design, use of grid power at the minesite rather than expensive diesel power, updated capital and operating costs to reflect current prices and updated labour and indirect costs, and changes in product mix and markets with the inclusion of additional bismuth premium products to be pursued to reflect the SMPP's strategic advantage as a North American based producer of specialty metals and chemicals. The Qualified Persons responsible for the Micon Feasibility Study for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 are: Chris Lattanzi, P.Eng., Richard Gowans, P.Eng. Harry Burgess, P.Eng. and Terrence Hennessey, P.Geo.

The information used in the Micon Feasibility Study incorporates updated capital and operating costs and site designs by Procon Mining & Tunnelling Inc. ("Procon") and Hatch Engineering, additional underground reserves and mining designs by Procon and a financial model, execution plan and marketing information supplied by Fortune. The Micon study also relies on information previously reported in the 2012 FEED study, which includes: the minesite, concentrator and SMPP process plant designs by Jacobs with minor updates by SGS and Procon; the mine plan and schedule, mineral resources, and mineral reserves by P&E - except for additional underground reserves primarily outside of the open pit design that were developed and confirmed by Procon; metallurgical test work by SGS Lakefield Research Limited ("SGS"); waste rock disposal and tailings disposal and design, effluent treatment design and environmental and permitting work by Golder Associates Limited; mine access road design by EBA Engineering Limited ("EBA"); and site infrastructure by Jacobs, International Quest Engineering Ltd., and EBA, with minor amendments by Procon and Fortune. A technical report for the Micon Feasibility Study prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 will also be filed on SEDAR within 45 days of this news release.

Highlights of the Micon Feasibility Study:

• Increase in Mineral Reserves to 33.1 million tonnes;
• Increase in Gold contained in the deposit to more than 1.1 million ounces;
• Levered Base Case pre-tax Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 15.6% (after-tax 15.1%) using lower commodity prices than the FEED study;
• Levered Base Case pre-tax 7% discounted Net Present Value ("NPV") of C$254 million (C$224 million after tax);
• Cycle metal price sensitivity analysis indicating potential for levered 7% discounted pre-tax NPV of C$543 million and IRR of 23.6% (C$505 million NPV and 23.2% IRR after-tax);
• Pre-production capital of C$589 million, including indirects and EPC costs;
• Low C1 cash operating cost for metals:
  • US$ 673.54/equivalent gold ounce;
  • US$ 9.50/equivalent cobalt pound;
  • US$ (702.12)/ounce of gold net of by-product credits;
  • US$ (5.19)/pound of cobalt net of by-product credits;
  • US$ (10.18)/pound of bismuth net of by-product credits;
• 20-year life of mine ("LOM") metal production of:
  • 814,000 troy ounces of gold as doré;
  • 70 million pounds of cobalt in cobalt sulphate containing 20.9% cobalt;
  • 74 million pounds of bismuth as 99.995% ingot and needles, and bismuth oxide containing 89.7% bismuth;
  • 11.2 million pounds of copper in a copper cement precipitate.

Robin Goad, Fortune's President and Chief Executive Officer commented, "As we complete the final stages of permitting and project financing for NICO, Fortune is well-positioned to be a reliable North American source of supply of cobalt and bismuth and a highly liquid gold co-product. Our proposed Saskatchewan refinery will stand out as a North American facility dedicated to the production of cobalt chemicals needed to manufacture rechargeable batteries used in portable electronic devices and electric vehicles, the latter currently driving transformational growth in the market for cobalt. NICO is also the world's largest single known deposit of bismuth, which is also experiencing increasing demand as a non-toxic, environmentally safe replacement for lead due to bans and restricted use of lead as a result of legislation and growing environmental awareness by manufacturers. A recovering world economy, growth in the use of our specialty metals, and supply concerns from traditional producers will collectively make Fortune an attractive NAFTA supplier of cobalt and bismuth."

Mike Romaniuk, Fortune's Vice President and Chief Operating Officer commented, "This update has produced a document with a project execution that we believe is achievable and with a schedule and costs that reflect the current market. The increased capital cost better reflects the labor and indirect costs expected in the locations for the mine and processing facilities. The additional efforts to realize opportunities in mining outside of the pit shell, grid power for the mine, and greater clarity on final product mix and markets has justified an update to the previously released information."

Location and Access for the NICO Mine and SMPP:

The NICO deposit and proposed mine and mill are located in the NT, 160 km northwest of the City of Yellowknife and 50 km northeast of the Tlicho aboriginal community of Whati. An access road will be constructed to join with a new all-weather road proposed from Whati to the highway at Behchoko, 85 km south of NICO. The road will enable the Company to truck bulk concentrate from the mill to Hay River, NT for trans-loading onto rail and delivery to the SMPP. Fortune owns 194 hectares of lands straddling the CN Rail line near Langham, Saskatchewan, 26 km northwest of Saskatoon and about 2 km north of the Yellowhead highway.

Updated Mineral Reserves:

NICO is an Iron Oxide Copper-Gold ("IOCG") class deposit, also commonly referred to as Olympic Dam-type after the "Super Giant" deposit in South Australia that defines this class. Ore is hosted in three, 40-50 degree dipping stratabound lenses of brecciated ironstone up to 1.3km in length, 550 metres in width and with individual lenses up to 70 metres in true thickness. The recoverable metals are associated with the approximate 5% sulphide fraction consisting primarily of cobaltian arsenopyrite, cobaltite, bismuthinite, chalcopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite, as well as native gold and bismuth.

The mineral resources and mineral reserves for the NICO deposit were prepared by P&E for the 2012 FEED study based on a geological block model determined from data from 327 drill holes, plus surface trenches, and operating cost net smelter return ("NSR") cut-off values. Mineral reserves were determined from the mineral resources based on operating costs. An additional 89,000 tonnes of underground mineral reserves were identified and confirmed by Procon and Fortune outside of the open pit design prepared by P&E. The updated combined Mineral Reserves are shown in the table below.

Underground Mineral Reserves

Open Pit Mineral Reserves

Underground and Open Pit Combined Mineral Reserves

Sums of the combined reserves may not exactly equal sums of the underground and open pit reserves due to rounding error.

The geological block model consists of the aggregate of five metre cubed individual blocks with grades assigned by the interpolation of composited assay data using Indicator Kriging. The resource estimate was also verified using Nearest Neighbor interpolation, which generated similar results. The composite database was subjected to geostatistical analysis to limit the influence of grades that were considered statistically anomalous, and established grade caps of 24 grams/tonne ("g/t") for gold, 0.94% for cobalt, 1.40% for bismuth and 0.71% for copper. The mineral reserve estimates were prepared by Eugene Puritch, P.Eng., Fred H. Brown, P.Geo., and James L. Pearson, P.Eng. of P&E, who are the Qualified Persons responsible for the 2012 FEED mineral reserves as defined by NI 43-101.Procon identified additional high-grade mineral reserves outside of the open pit design from the 2012 P&E mineral resources and have been included into a combined mineral reserve statement. Henry Wulkan, P.Eng. Manager of Projects for Procon is the Qualified Person responsible for the additional underground mineral reserves as defined by NI-43-101.

Products and Markets:

NICO is a diversified specialty metals project with a countercyclical gold co-product and by-product copper. The project will be well positioned to be a reliable vertically integrated North American source of supply of cobalt and bismuth products in a market where the dominant producers are in counties where there is political instability for cobalt (Congo – 60% of cobalt mine production) and policy risks for bismuth and cobalt (China – 80% of bismuth mine supply and 43% of cobalt refinery production). The location of the SMPP in Saskatoon will benefit from its proximity to the North American market and trade advantages from NAFTA as well as the European Union. The plant will produce cobalt sulphate heptahydrate, a chemical needed to manufacture lithium ion and nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries to take advantage of their growing use in portable electronic devices and electric vehicles. The plant will also produce 99.995% bismuth ingot and needles as well as bismuth oxide with 89.7% bismuth content. Bismuth has traditional use in low temperature and fusible alloys, pharmaceuticals and medicines such as Pepto-Bismol ® as well as cosmetics. Bismuth demand growth is primarily a result of its non-toxic properties which make it an environmentally safe replacement of lead because of bans and restricted use of lead in potable drinking water sources and electronics (eg. from European Union - REACH program). Bismuth is therefore being used in lead-free plumbing and electronic solders, free-machining steel, brasses and aluminum, paint pigments and automotive anti-corrosion coatings and windshield frits. Bismuth is also one of the few metals, which expands when it cools and is therefore used in products where dimensional stability is required such as castings. The SMPP has been designed to produce multiple value-added products that sell for significant premiums over metal. The flexible design of the SMPP will also allow for simple modifications to produce other cobalt and bismuth metals and chemicals to take advantage of market opportunities and also to potentially diversify into the recycling business.

Economic Analysis:

Fortune has evaluated the overall economics for the NICO project by conventional discounted cash flow techniques, under the presumption that the initial capital expenditure will be financed 30% by equity and 70% by debt for a levered economic analysis contemplated in its project financing discussions. All revenues and costs are expressed in Canadian dollars, typically of fourth quarter 2013 value. Metal prices denominated in US dollars have been converted to Canadian currency at an exchange rate of C$1.00 = US$0.88. This exchange rate has been assumed to remain constant throughout the life of the project.

The following table is a summary of the results of the base case financial analysis. All production, revenue and cost data are life-of-mine estimates.

NICO Economics

Base Case Price assumptions are US$ 1350/troy ounce for gold, US$16.00 cobalt/pound ("lb") (US$19.04 cobalt/pound in sulphate), US$10.50/lb bismuth (US$12.64/lb bismuth in average production of combined ingot, needles and oxide), and US$2.38/lb of copper at an exchange rate of C$1 =US$0.88.

Sensitivity Analyses

Sensitivity analyses have been conducted to determine the effect on NPV and IRR from application of variations in the base level prices for the two principal co-products, gold and cobalt. The results are summarized in the following table. These sensitivity analyses also serve as a proxy for variations in ore grade, metallurgical recovery or metal production, for either gold or cobalt.

Gold and Cobalt Price Sensitivity Analyses

A separate sensitivity analysis was also conducted, using the base case production and cost estimates, but metal prices reflecting the 6-year price cycles for the metal that will be recovered from the project to determine the impact of metal price cyclicity shown in following table. Under this sensitivity analysis, the NICO Project would be expected to yield an after-tax, undiscounted life-of-mine cash flow of C$1.44 billion, levered pre-tax IRR of 23.6%, after-tax IRR of 23.2%, levered 7% discounted pre-tax NPV of C$543 million and after-tax 7% NPV of C$505 million.

Cycle Metal Prices Last Six Years

The capital costs for the NICO project were determined by the engineering companies that were responsible for their respective components of the study and totals $589 million for the first 2 years of the project, including all direct and indirect costs and contingencies. The underground mining fleet is assumed to be provided by contracted service and the cost of the equipment is built into the operating costs for the underground part of the mine. The open pit mine fleet is planned to be sourced under a lease purchase from the supplier and therefore only the deposit is included in project capital, whereas most of the cost of this equipment is built into the open pit mining costs. The total estimated pre-production capital costs for the NICO project are summarized in the following table expressed in constant Canadian dollars of fourth quarter, 2013 value. The table does not include working capital, which is estimated at C$20 million.

Summary of Capital Costs

The following table shows the projected average annual metal production for each of NICO's component commodities.

Average Metal Production

The cash cost net of by-product credits for gold, cobalt and bismuth were determined for the NICO project in the table below. Notably, the cash costs per pound of cobalt and bismuth net of by-product credits are low and demonstrate that NICO has very low operating costs for all metals net of by-product credits. After capital has been repaid, operations can be sustained during periods of low metal prices and volatility.

Operating Cash Cost

The costs of operating the facilities at the NICO project and those at the SMPP have been estimated separately. The total estimated life-of-project ("LOP") operating costs are summarized in the following table. The average annual costs shown in the table are based on a project life of 20 years.

Estimated Life-of-Project Operating Costs

Summary of Operating Costs

The estimated LOM operating costs for the NICO project in the NT are summarized in the following table. The average estimated cost is C$39.71 per tonne of ore milled. These costs are expressed in constant Canadian dollars of fourth quarter, 2013 value.

Summary of Project Site Operating Cost Estimates

The estimated LOM operating costs for the SMPP are estimated at C$599 million, or C$564 per tonne of bulk concentrate processed.

Average Cash cost per tonne of ore

Mining:

NICO is planned to be mined primarily by open pit methods with underground ores contributing 16% of the mill feed during the first two years of operations. The open pit part of the mine will be a conventional truck and shovel operation, accomplished in four phases at an average waste to ore strip ratio of 3.0:1. The underground portion of the mine will be mined by retreat blasthole open stoping using a contractor and provides early access to gold-rich, higher grade ores in the mine to optimize cash flow scheduling. Notably, most of the underground pre-production development work for the underground part of the mine has previously been constructed from the test mining programs that were conducted in 2006 and 2007 by Procon at a total cost of approximately C$20 million.

Processing:

The NICO ore will be processed in two stages at the NICO site and SMPP, respectively. At the NICO site, 4,650 dry tonnes per day (average) of ore will be processed in a crushing, grinding and flotation concentrator to produce approximately 180 tonnes of wet bulk concentrate per day. The high concentration ratio of NICO ores is a significant economic attribute to the deposit, which allows the Company to concentrate the valuable metals in 3.8% of the original ore for efficient transport to southern Canada where significant process cost savings can be achieved. The NICO bulk concentrate will be bagged and transported by truck to Hay River, NT and transfer to rail for delivery to the Company's proposed SMPP on the CN railway line near Saskatoon. 

At the SMPP, bulk concentrate will undergo additional grinding and flotation to produce separate gold-bearing cobalt and bismuth concentrates. The bismuth concentrate is treated by atmospheric acid leach, followed by electro-winning to produce 99.5% bismuth cathode. The cathode is then melted in a furnace and poured to make 99.995% bismuth ingots or needles and with 60% of the production further processed in an oxidation chamber to bismuth oxide with 89.7% bismuth content. 

The bismuth leach residue is fed into an autoclave together with the cobalt concentrate for processing by pressure acid leach to dissolve the metals. The solution that is produced will then be treated with lime sequential neutralization to remove impurities and sodium bicarbonate to precipitate cobalt carbonate. Copper is recovered from the precipitate by re-leaching and Iron powder cementation to produce 90% metal cement precipitate. The cobalt circuit uses S-X (Cyanex 272), sequential stripping, solution evaporation & crystallization to produce cobalt sulphate with 20.9% cobalt content.

Gold is recovered from the combined leach residue using cyanide and precipitated by Merrill Crowe process followed by melting to pour gold doré bars.

The process flow sheet, production of high value metal products and metal recoveries have all been verified in three pilot plants as well as laboratory scale test work that was carried out at SGS between 1997 and 2012. The decision to move the downstream processing of metals to Saskatchewan was driven primarily by the availability of lower cost power and the proactive support of the Government of Saskatchewan, which has also passed attractive tax legislation to encourage processing of raw materials that have been sourced from outside of the province. The location near Saskatoon also provides access to rail, as well as proximity to the highways, natural gas, lime and other reagents, and a skilled labour pool of engineers and process plant workers.

Fortune continues to work with Deloitte Corporate Finance Canada Inc. to complete project financing agreements for the NICO project. The Company has already announced a strategic investment by Procon Resources Inc. in 2013 to provide interim financing to advance work on the project, and negotiations are ongoing to secure final project financing for the development. The Micon feasibility study will be used to support ongoing negotiations with potential strategic partners and their banks.

About Fortune Minerals

Fortune is a diversified resource company with several mineral deposits and a number of exploration projects, all located in Canada. The Company is focused on the development of the Arctos Anthracite Project in British Columbia and the vertically integrated NICO gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper project that is comprised of a mine and mill in the NT that will produce a bulk concentrate for shipment to a refinery for processing to high value metal products. In addition, the Company owns the Sue-Dianne copper-silver-gold deposit and other exploration projects in the NT. Fortune is focused on outstanding performance and growth of shareholder value through assembly and development of high quality mineral resource projects.

This press release contains forward-looking information. This forward-looking information includes statements with respect to, among other things, the proposed development of the NICO project and the SMPP, the permitting process for the NICO project and the SMPP, the anticipated production from the NICO project and the SMPP, the anticipated capital and operating costs of the NICO project and the SMPP and the anticipated economic returns therefrom. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management as well as certain assumptions at the date the information is given (including, in respect of the forward-looking information contained in this press release, assumptions regarding the Company's ability to arrange necessary financing for the NICO project and the SMPP and obtain all necessary permits for the NICO project and the SMPP and assumptions regarding future metal prices, the capital and operating costs of the NICO project and the SMPP and the production from the NICO project and the SMPP). However, such forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. These factors include the inherent risks involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties, the risk that the Company may not be able to arrange the necessary financing to construct and operate the NICO mine or the SMPP, uncertainties with respect to the receipt or timing of required permits for the development of the NICO project or the SMPP, the possibility of delays in the commencement of production from the NICO project or construction of the SMPP, the risk of cost overruns, the risk that  future metal prices may be lower than anticipated  and other factors. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information because it is possible that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forms of forward-looking information will not be achieved by the Company.  The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise it to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

SOURCE Fortune Minerals Limited