Fortune Minerals Ltd T.FT

Fortune's Fortune?

[MoneyMan123456]

This could be an interesting project to see go forward, but they really need to expand their reserves to make it more viable.

Glancing through their technical report, the real problem is that mining in the NWT is way more expensive and complicated then mining in other jurisdictions.  They have an expected mining and concentrating cost of only 39.71 $/ton (in 2014 dollars).  This is less then half what the big diamond miners have for production costs, and they are taking advantage of economies of scale that Fortune will be unable to.  Having an all-season road will be a huge advantage for access, however having to truck concentrate is going to be an on-going challenge.  Also check out their sustaining capital estimates.  It is almost a joke given the length of project....

You have to wonder whether their operating and construction estimated costs are on the optomistic side, given the many challenges of working in the North.  Consultants love projects like these, because they know that once construction has commenced, their are juicy long term contracts to take advantage of.

I'm considering taking a flyer on Fortune, with the hopes that a bigger miner comes along that can fund construction and increase the annual production rates to obtain some economies of scale.

[geolith]

Diamond mines have very little in common with Nico.  You shouold compare concentrating costs with other base metal operations, like Teck in Alaska, Constatine's Palmer deposit, any of the Eskay Creek developments, Canarc's New Polaris Mine or others like this.  You'll see costs for example, processing at Palmer at $16.83 per tonne.  It's cheap and proven. and $24.25

[MoneyMan123456]

Lol, the front-end processes of both diamond mining and base metal mining are very similar.  Drill, blast, load, haul, dump, primary crushing, scrubbers, screening, secondary crushing, conveying, etc.  The back-end is obviously different, but diamond mining benefits from having very little reagent usage as opposed to base metals. Both Palmer and Eskay Creek are not in production. 

[Jim1712]

Dip your toes in.   I doubt Fortune Minerals will even be the owner of this asset during the buildout.    Just my 2 cents   JIM  

[red]

At these prices with this potential, the water is getting hotter, may as well jump in and join those of us with our hair wet.

[MoneyMan123456]

It's a very interesting project.  Just for fun I calculated based on their current resource/reserve estimate, that there is around 4.8 billion in revenue (if they could extract all metal at 80% recovery).  Over 15 year mine life that would be an average revenue of 320 million per year.   The question is, can they mine, concentrate and recover at a cost of well below 320

[Tuckerthefox]

Bismuth baby, bismuth. Drill results are expected at any moment. Would be foolish to do a fs before results. Thanks for the effort it took to crunch the numbers. Keep in mind all of our resources are climbing higher daily.

[geolith]

My mistake in only looking into the processing costs. Yes, drill blast load haul dump costs are similar.  Diamond mines use multiple crush cycles to avoid breakage of product, as opposed to basic cominution goals at Nico and so would expect to deviate at this point. We should compare road accessible remote mines such as, Victoria Gold, any in N. Saskatchewan or Manitoba, Brucejack in N BC