Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Fortune Minerals has moved one step closer to getting an all-weather road to its proposed Nico mine.

Last week the London, Ont.-based mining firm announced funding for studies into constructing a year-round road to its property in the Tlicho, 160 km northwest of Yellowknife.

Fortune Minerals has already contributed approximately $250,000 for engineering and environmental studies and will provide another $70,000 this year. Fortune's contributions account for about a third of the $1 million going towards the studies.

Other project partners include the federal government, the GNWT and private industry.

"Our project requires all-weather road access to receive the services and employees and to ship out our product," said Julian Kemp, Fortune Mineral's vice-president of finance and chief financial officer.

The feasibility study for the Nico project assumed the road would be in by 2010, when Fortune hopes to have the mine operating.

The mine would be producing gold, cobalt and bismuth.

Kemp estimates 1,500 tonnes of cobalt and bismuth will be shipped out of the facility each year.

"To ship any other way than by truck is very expensive," Kemp said.

Fortune Minerals is hoping to employ aboriginal workers from Tlicho communities and road access would enable them to drive to work.

The life of the Nico mine is estimated at 15 years, but Kemp sees longer-lasting benefits of the road.

Fortune's Sue Dianne copper-silver deposit is located 25 km north of the Nico deposit and there are other promising areas, too.

"The mill facility with road access will benefit additional mine developments well into the future," Kemp said.

To date, the GNWT's department of transportation has completed an economic analysis of the costs and benefits of transforming the current winter road through the Tlicho region into an overland route and eventually into an all-weather road.

Two additional studies are pending, one on environmental impacts of the proposed road, and the other on engineering issues.

Michael Conway, regional superintendent of transportation for the North Slave region, said the first step would be to realign the winter road, which would increase the time that goods could be transported by land to the Tlicho.

A 20 km-wide corridor surrounding the winter road is being examined to choose the best route. The communities of Whati and Gameti would also be linked by road if the plan goes through.

The government is also studying another spur route to Wekweeti.

Conway hopes the studies will be complete by the end of the year. They will then be presented to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).

"(INAC) has the responsibility and mandate to build the new roads in the NWT," Conway said.

If the road isn't ready the mine will have to wait, said Kemp.

"It would probably defer the start-up of the mine."