Based in London, Ontario, Canada, Fortune Minerals manages coal, gold, cobalt, bismuth, copper and silver resources in three northwestern Canada deposits.

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After spending two decades as an exploration company, Fortune Minerals is now transitioning into a mineral producer. “Our objective is to build a mid-tier mining company with production in the near term, and then to continue expanding the business through the development of new projects through exploration, mergers and acquisitions,” President and CEO Robin Goad says.

Founded in 1988, the London, Ontario, Canada-based company manages coal, gold, cobalt, bismuth, copper and silver resources in three northwestern Canada deposits. “Right now we’re focused on the development of two of our principle assets, Nico and Mount Klappan,” Goad explains.

Fortune’s 1995 discovery of the Nico cobalt and bismuth deposit took the company to “a whole different level,” he says. It began listing shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange two years later and has achieved a market capitalization of more than $200 million (Canadian.) Then, in 2002, the company purchased the Mount Klappan coal deposit from Conoco Philips. It delivered a bankable feasibility study on the project in 2005.

In 2007, Fortune finished a bankable feasibility study on its Nico development. The year prior, it had purchased the Hemlo Golden Giant Mill from Newmount, which it in the process of dismantling and relocating to Nico. Fortune has initiated underground test mining at Nico and released positive plant processing results this year. The permitting process is underway, and the company expects to begin production at both Nico and Mount Klappan in late 2010.

Fortune also owns a deposit called Sue-Dianne, located 20 kilometers north of Nico. Its main resources are copper and silver with some gold, and the deposit could supply future incremental mill feed to extend the mine life of the Nico development.

Buried Treasure
Nico is expected to have a life of more than 15 years. It will utilize “innovative processing methods” that will transfer the ores directly to high-value end products, according to Goad. “We don’t intend to produce an intermediate product; we’re actually going directly to metal at the site using hydrometallurgical processing methods,” Goad says.

The mine will produce 3.25 million pounds of cobalt cathode, up to 69,000 ounces of gold as impure bullion and 3.23 million pounds of bismuth cement each year at a planned process rate of 4,000 tons of ore per day.

Cobalt and bismuth are specialty metals that are increasing in consumption and demand because of recent advances in technology, Goad notes. “Cobalt is used in a variety of differential metals, chemicals and pigments, and those chemical applications are used in lithium-ion batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries,” he explains. “These batteries are used in various portable electronic gadgets like iPods, cellular telephones, portable computers and, very importantly for the future, hybrid-electric vehicles. In fact, there are between five and seven pounds of cobalt in the batteries of each hybrid-electric car.”