Mr. Troy Nazarewicz reports

FORTUNE MINERALS PROVIDES NICO FEASIBILITY STUDY UPDATE

Fortune Minerals Ltd. has provided an update on the Nico cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project feasibility study that is nearing completion. The Nico project comprises a planned open-pit and underground mine and concentrator in the Northwest Territories and a dedicated hydrometallurgical facility in Alberta that will process concentrates from the mine, and other feed sources, to value-added products for the energy transition, new technologies and defence. Worley Canada Services Ltd. is leading the study team, with P&E Mining Consultants Inc., Micon International Ltd. and WSP Canada Inc. also contributing their respective expertise. Worley are also leading a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for the Nico project to provide more detailed engineering information for procurement. Natural Resources Canada is contributing to the cost of FEED and product sensitivities for the study through the global partnership initiative (GPI) program (see news release dated May 16, 2024).

Engineering

Engineering for the base case development scenario for the study is essentially complete. The company is currently engaged with its engineering partners reviewing and optimizing the concentrator and Alberta refinery capital and operating costs. Some design changes to reduce costs are requiring modifications to the site layouts and building designs, and are still in progress.

Two process opportunities have also been recognized to increase gold revenues and provide a lower capital and operating cost cobalt product start-up option for the Alberta refinery and are being incorporated into the study.

Additional gold recovery

P&E has prepared updated mineral reserve estimates for the Nico deposit based on the current metal prices and costs, and an updated geological block model with more constrained mineral resource boundaries to reduce modelling dilution and provide better differentiation of higher-grade resource blocks for earlier processing. The new mineral reserves and the updated mine plan and production schedule will be announced as part of the study when it is complete.

The Nico deposit ores have a distinct grade-recovery relationship for gold that requires recoveries to be determined on a block-by-block basis from the mineral resource block model. P&E has determined that the average gold recovery is 73.3 per cent during bulk flotation concentration at the mine site. Most of the metal recovery losses for the Nico project occur during bulk flotation, and 6 per cent to 11 per centof the feed gold reports to the bulk cleaner scavenger tailings where it was previously considered to be lost. Testwork carried out by SGS Canada Inc. has indicated gold recoveries of 77 per cent to 85 per centfrom this stream using carbon-in-leach technology. Worley is now preparing the design engineering for a new circuit at the mine site to recover this additional gold for incorporation into the study. Loaded carbon from the mine site would be shipped to the gold plant at the Alberta refinery for final processing to dore bars.

Cobalt mixed hydroxide precipitate start-up option

The base case for the study contemplates producing a cobalt sulphate heptahydrate product for the lithium-ion rechargeable battery industry. However, cobalt prices have been variable over the past year with respect to the cobalt payables in hydroxide, sulphate and metal products. Consequently, Fortune has been assessing an option for producing a high-grade cobalt mixed hydroxide precipitate (CoMHP) intermediate product as an alternative start-up option to reduce initial capital and operating costs. CoMHP is a marketable cobalt product that could be further processed to sulphate or metal. If the company elects to pursue this option at start-up, the sulphate production circuits could still be constructed after the Alberta refinery is commissioned using cash flow from operations. Fortune has been conducting test work at SGS for several months to validate this option and has produced CoMHP with grades ranging from 35 per cent to 47 per cent cobalt and 1.8 per cent to 2.1 per cent nickel as the payable metals. Current tests are focused on reducing the moisture content of the finished product using a magnesia-based reagent while maintaining the chemical specifications that have already been achieved. Worley is also working on the engineering for this process option to incorporate it into the study with an economic trade-off analysis.

Rio Tinto process collaboration

Fortune is continuing to advance its process collaboration with Rio Tinto to provide a process and marketing solution for bismuth that can be sourced from Kennecott smelter wastes in Utah (see news release dated Sept. 29, 2023).

Alberta refinery public meetings

Fortune held public meetings in the towns of Lamont and Bruderheim in Alberta, on Oct. 21 and Oct. 22, respectively, to provide information about the planned hydrometallurgical facility. This part of Alberta's industrial heartland has received significant attention with the recent pipeline and AI (artificial intelligence) data centre announcements and Fortune is pleased to be part of the area's economic growth.

Development of the Nico project would provide a reliable, vertically integrated, domestic supply of cobalt chemicals, bismuth ingots and copper cement products with supply chain transparency and custody control of the metals from ore through to the production of value-added metal products. Cobalt sulphate is used to make the cathodes of high performance lithium-ion rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles, portable electronics and stationary energy storage cells. Bismuth has unique physical and chemical properties used in diverse applications in the automotive, aerospace, plumbing, electronics, environmental, pharmaceutical and defence industries, and cannot be easily substituted with other metals. The more than one million ounces of in situ gold in the Nico deposit s a countercyclical and highly liquid co-product that can mitigate critical mineral price volatility.

For more detailed information about the Nico mineral reserves and certain technical information in this news release, please refer to the technical report on the Nico project, entitled "Technical Report on the Feasibility Study for the Nico Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper Project, Northwest Territories, Canada," dated April 2, 2014, and prepared by Micon International Ltd., which has been filed on SEDAR+ and is available under the company's profile.

The disclosure of scientific and technical information contained in this news release have been approved by Robin Goad, MSc, PGeo, president and chief executive officer of Fortune, and Alex Mezei, MSc, PEng, Fortune's chief metallurgist, who are qualified persons under National Instrument 43-101.

About Fortune Minerals Ltd.

Fortune is a Canadian mining company focused on developing the Nico cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories and Alberta. Fortune also owns the satellite Sue-Dianne copper-silver-gold deposit, located 25 kilometres north of the Nico deposit, and is a potential future source of incremental feed to extend the life of the Nico concentrator.

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