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Fortune Minerals increases planned production rate for the NICO Gold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper deposit, NWT
16% increase in production rate achieved by reconfiguring Hemlo mills Issued Capital: 55,550,107 ...
About this update from Fortune Minerals Limited
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n\n16% increase in production rate achieved by reconfiguring Hemlo mills\n\nIssued Capital: 55,550,107\n\n\nLONDON, ON, Jan. 21 /CNW Telbec/ - Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX-FT)\n("Fortune Minerals" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of\nrecently completed studies for the configuration of four grinding mills it\nacquired as part of the Golden Giant Mine process plant purchased earlier from\nNewmont Canada Limited (see Fortune news release dated August 31, 2006).\nGrinding plant simulation and optimization studies were conducted by Metso\nMinerals Inc. and Starkey & Associates as part of the Front End Engineering\nDesign (FEED) work being done by Aker Metals, a division of Aker Solutions\nCanada Inc. (Aker Solutions) for Fortune's 100% owned NICO\nGold-Cobalt-Bismuth-Copper deposit in the Northwest Territories. Notably,\nthese studies determined that minor modifications to one of the mills\nre-configured as a rod mill, followed by three secondary ball mills in\nparallel closed circuit, would provide for an increase in grinding capacity\nfrom 185 to 215 tonnes per hour. This produces a 16% increase in the nominal\ndaily grinding capacity for the NICO process plant from 4000 to approximately\n4650 tonnes per day (at 90% availability) for essentially the same operating\ncost.\n\n\nThe increase in grinding rate indicated by the Metso/Starkey/Aker\nSolutions studies can be accommodated with no significant changes to the\nmining fleet, primary crusher or flotation circuits already specified for the\nNICO mine and process plant. Only an incremental increase in the downstream\nhydrometallurgical process equipment would be required to achieve the\nincreased production rate for the entire mine's process plant. Fortune\nMinerals is pleased to announce that it now plans to increase the nominal\nproduction rate for the NICO plant from 4000 to 4650 tonnes per day and this\nis expected to reduce the operating cost per tonne of ore processed.\n\n\nThe $5 million pilot plant test for NICO ores being conducted at SGS\nLakefield Research Limited (Lakefield) is now substantially complete. Results\nof the crushing, grinding and flotation components have already been announced\nand exceeded expectations (see Fortune Minerals news release dated February 6,\n2008). The downstream hydrometallurgical processin...