Fortune Minerals switches focus to gold, gets $144K from N.W.T. toward exploration

A Northwest Territories mining company is turning its project focus to gold.

Fortune Minerals Ltd. announced it received $144,000 from the territory's Mining Incentive Program, in a news release Monday. The company says those funds will go toward the geophysical surveys planned at the NICO Project site — located 50 kilometres northeast of Whati — this summer. 

"That makes the project a little less expensive for the company and clearly it's difficult to raise money right now," said Robin Goad, the company's president and CEO.

The project had initially been paused when travel restrictions were imposed by the N.W.T. government to limit the spread of COVID-19, but will now resume, with out of territory mining workers allowed to travel directly to worksites.

The company's switched focus to gold follows its announcement last October that it would shelve plans to upsize its early-stage cobalt mine in the country's far North.

Goad said the deposits of the exploration area is promising for the London, Ont.-based company.

"We don't really know what's under it. But previous drilling along the north boundary has intersected some gold," said Goad. 

He said most of the approximately one kilometre long exploration area is obscured by overburden, such as soil or rock, and wetlands.

 "We can't say for sure, but we certainly hope it contains gold, because gold is very attractive right now," Goad said.

He added that COVID-19 created a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace making it more difficult to operate.

"Those are issues that are beyond our control," he said.

The construction of the 97 kilometre Tlicho all-season road from Highway 3 to the community of Whati, N.W.T., is still being worked on but is ahead of schedule, Goad said.

Territory helps fund other projects

The territory announced Tuesday the 19 other companies who received funding from the incentive program. All but one (in the Sahtu region) are in the North Slave area.

The maximum funding per corporate project was increased in May to 60 per cent of eligible expenses, to a maximum of $240,000. 

The territory doled out a total of $995,413 this year. 

The other corporate projects that were granted funds were Cheetah Resources Corp. ($180,000), Gold Terra Resources Corp. ($86,148), North Arrow Minerals Inc. ($130,000), Pine Point Mining Ltd. ($47,082), StrategX Elements - 393 ($120,000), and BNT ($37,123).

The full list of successful applicants can be found on the territory's website.

Katrina Nokleby, minister of industry, tourism and investment said investment in mineral development through the Mining Incentive Program is an integral component of future economic activity in the Northwest Territories, in an emailed statement.

"Given the vast size of our territory, the potential for discovering new deposits of gold, rare earth metals, diamonds, lead, zinc, cobalt, and other minerals remains strong," she said.

The territory said compliance with public health orders and proposed N.W.T. spending were both "carefully scrutinized" during the review and scoring of applications.