Mine developer signs new deal for potential refinery

Canada-based mine developer Fortune Minerals entered into a new option agreement with JFSL Field Services to purchase a brownfield industrial site to build a refinery that would turn out cobalt, bismuth and copper products.

Fortune can acquire the property in Alberta's Lamont County by paying C$6mn ($4.4mn) before November 2025, the company said this week. It must make monthly payments of C$100,000 that will go toward the purchase price, as a condition of the deal.

Fortune has paid JFSL a little more than C$1.4mn for the site so far, and that total will be deducted from the overall purchase price as well. The two had entered into a previous option agreement that expired in July after being extended more than once.

JFSL will be allowed to market the site to other prospective buyers during the option period, but Fortune will have a 90-day right of first refusal to match any offer. Additionally, JFSL has the right to continue using the property and its existing facilities for 18 months following a sale to Fortune.

Fortune touts that the 77-acre property, which previously contained a steel fabrication plant, is near rail lines, reagents key to the potential refinery's function and skilled labor from the existing petrochemicals industry in the area.

Fortune expects to refine concentrates from its NICO critical minerals project in the Northwest Territories into 8,780 metric tonnes/yr of cobalt sulphate, 1,700 t/yr of bismuth ingots and 300 t/yr of copper in cement precipitate.

Fortune also has a collaboration in place to potentially extract cobalt and bismuth from waste streams from mining conglomerate Rio Tinto's smelter in Utah that pulls ore from its Kennecott copper mine.

Development of the mine, which is anticipated to utilize open-pit and underground mining methods, has yet to begin with Fortune awaiting a final project construction decision. Fortune received federal funding from both the Canadian and US governments to complete a new feasibility study and other work that is needed before that determination can be made. That process is expected to take 20 months.

Fortune also still needs to line up construction financing for the mine and refinery, which are estimated to cost C$770mn. It predicts establishing the mine would take two years, while the refinery would take 18 months.

By Alex Nicoll