New road paves the way for Canada’s first primary cobalt mine – by Staff (Mining.com – November 7, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Fortune Minerals (TSX: FT) (OTCQX: FTMDF), the company behind what could become Canada’s first primary cobalt mine, said this week that its NICO project will greatly benefit from the about-to-be-open Tlicho all-season road, linking the community of Whati to the national highway system.

The Tlicho Highway is a 97-kilometre, two-lane gravel all-season road to Whati constructed by North Star Infrastructure under a 28-year, $400-million design-build-operate-maintain contract with the Government of the Northwest Territories. The capital costs include up to $53 million in federal government contributions through the Canada Infrastructure Fund.

According to Fortune, the road is a key enabler for its NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project because once it is inaugurated on November 30, 2021, the company can work towards completing its planned spur road to the mine, which will allow metal concentrates to be trucked to the railway at Enterprise or Hay River for delivery to a planned refinery in southern Canada.

“I would like to congratulate the Tlicho people on realizing a 40-year vision to establish this essential road link to the community of Whati, which will also make the winter ice roads extending north to Gameti and Wekweeti more reliable with climate change,” Robin Goad, Fortune Minerals president and CEO, said in a media statement.

For the rest of this article: https://www.mining.com/new-road-paves-the-way-for-canadas-first-primary-cobalt-mine/