Fortune Minerals to Locate NICO Process Facility in Southern Canada

July 28, 2009
Issued Capital: 64,890,857
NEWS RELEASE

Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX-FT) (“Fortune Minerals” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce its decision to locate the hydrometallurgical part of the process plant to treat concentrates produced from its NICO Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper development in the Northwest Territories (NWT) to a site in southern Canada. This change in the NICO project will have a material positive impact on both capital and operating costs for the development. It will also help mitigate future exposure to increasing energy costs, accelerate the construction schedule, reduce environmental impacts, and help speed the permitting process already in progress.The NICO mine is located 160 km northwest of the City of Yellowknife, 22 km west of the Snare hydro complex and 50 km northeast of the community of Whati, NWT. NICO is a proposed vertically integrated project to mine and process ores to high value metal products, including gold doré, cobalt and bismuth cathodes (metal) and a minor amount of copper and nickel by-products using proven hydrometallurgical process methods that have been confirmed in two pilot plant tests and are used at existing refineries.

The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board, that is conducting the environmental assessment for the NICO development, and representatives of the federal, NWT and Tlicho (aboriginal) governments have been notified of Fortune Minerals’ decision. The mine, mill and flotation concentrator will be constructed in the NWT as originally planned. Conversely, the downstream hydrometallurgical part of the process plant, comprised of pressure and acid leaching followed by electro-winning to high value metal products, and the gold leach circuit, will now be constructed at a site in southern Canada. Numerous locations have been investigated to construct this “Southern Hydrometallurgical Facility” (SHMF) over the past 6 months. Fortune Minerals has now shortlisted four sites in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and plans to acquire one of these sites shortly.

Approximately 80,000 tonnes of metal concentrates produced at NICO each year will be transported from the property by truck (5+ trucks per day) to the rail head at Hay River, NWT for delivery to the SHMF by rail.

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