Fortune Minerals Ltd., which has long aspired to open a new mine in the NWT, says that while the proposed project is not new, it has received significant attention due to the changing political climate.
Fortune’s NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project, located north of Whati, has been 30 years in the making, says geologist and company CEO Robin Goad.
He says the project would employ 250 to 300 people in the NWT once the mine is up and running, and an additional 100 or more people would be hired at a refinement facility based in Alberta.
The NWT deposit was discovered in 1996. Since then, Fortune has “systematically proven up” NICO’s reserves, gone through environmental assessments and recently saw key permits renewed.
“So we’re more or less approaching a shovel-ready status,” Goad said.
The deposit contains 10 million ounces of “in-situ” gold, and enough cobalt, bismuth and copper to replace the GDP of roughly one third of one diamond mine, according to Goad.
“We’re also going to process that material in Canada, and that produces some additional value,” he said. “The project is getting significant attention right now because of the critical minerals, but also because it has midstream processing.”
Midstream processing is the mineral refinement that occurs between mining and final manufacturing, which Goad says offers a means to combat China’s monopoly on refined critical minerals.
Refinement will take place at the company’s Alberta facility.
“China and the United States, in particular, have engaged in a bit of a trade war, and China has been restricting the export of bismuth,” said Goad. “China has effectively taken control of the markets for a lot of technology. They’ve weaponized the production of bismuth, so it’s very important to have North American sources of supply. We have midstream processing, so that we keep the production of the metals here in Canada.”
While Fortune Minerals is not yet certain of total costs because its feasibility study is still in progress, Goad is certain the project will exceed $1 billion to construct and achieve operational status.
Fortune has received a commitment for $58.2 million from the federal government for the project as part of a joint venture agreement between the company and the Tlicho Government to complete the road to the site. It also received $173,000 from the Alberta Government and nearly $6.4 million from the United States Department of War, which is seeking to secure a supply of bismuth.
Goad said there will be additional capital support from the government as Canada tries to diversify away from China’s critical mineral dominance.
“But we will need to bring in strategic partners for a good portion of the finance, and we do expect that governments will be a significant part of the development of this asset,” he said.
NICO also has a loan from Prosper NWT for $3.8 million to complete the acquisition of the Alberta refinery site.
There is currently no explicit local labour percentage agreement, but Goad says that participation agreements involving local and Indigenous governments are likely.
“Obviously, it is to our benefit to hire locally,” he said. “Not only for the social licence to operate, but also because we’d like to have our workers coming from the local communities because they’ll be more loyal to the project. We have targets for Northern employment, Indigenous employment.”
Goad said Fortune Minerals is in the process of finalizing its feasibility study, and hopes to complete front-end engineering and design by the first or second quarter of 2027. After that, the project will be at a level of confidence that will allow for equipment procurement and construction, he added.
By Kody Ferron, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Sep 28, 2026 at 07:39
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