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    NICO project battery grade cobalt sulphate: flowsheet and cost lens for mine planners

    January 21, 2026|

    Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

    NICO project battery grade cobalt sulphate: flowsheet and cost lens for mine planners

    First reported on MINING.com

    30 Second Briefing

    Validation test work at Fortune Minerals’ NICO project in Canada’s Northwest Territories has confirmed production of battery grade cobalt sulphate heptahydrate using an optimised, simplified hydrometallurgical flowsheet with good metal recoveries, aimed at curbing capital and operating cost escalation. The planned development combines an open pit and underground mine plus concentrator feeding a dedicated refinery in Alberta to produce cobalt sulphate, bismuth ingots and copper cement, underpinned by 1.1 million in-situ oz of gold. Funding includes C$7.5 million from Natural Resources Canada and US$6.38 million from the US Department of Defense.

    Technical Brief

    • Validation test work confirmed cobalt sulphate heptahydrate product quality from the optimised hydrometallurgical flowsheet.
    • Flowsheet simplification is explicitly targeted at curbing both capital cost and operating cost escalation.
    • NICO deposit is described as containing approximately 12% of known global bismuth reserves.
    • Project configuration couples an open pit and underground mine with an on-site concentrator in the Northwest Territories.
    • Refinery design allows for treatment of NICO concentrates plus additional third‑party feed sources.
    • Co-products include bismuth ingots and copper cement, alongside cobalt sulphate and over 1.1 Moz in-situ gold.
    • Government support comprises C$7.5 million from Natural Resources Canada and US$6.38 million from the US Department of Defense.

    Our Take

    With NICO holding about 12% of global bismuth reserves alongside cobalt and gold, Fortune Minerals is positioned more like a diversified critical-minerals supplier than a single-metal cobalt play, which can materially improve project resilience to price cycles in any one commodity.

    Dual backing from Natural Resources Canada and the US Department of Defense aligns NICO with the emerging North American critical-minerals security agenda seen in the proposed $2.5 billion US Strategic Resilience Reserve, suggesting the project could be a candidate feed source for future government stockpiles of cobalt and allied materials.

    Battery-grade cobalt sulphate heptahydrate output from a dedicated hydrometallurgical refinery in Canada would give downstream cathode and lithium-ion manufacturers an option that is both non-Chinese and non-DRC, a supply-chain attribute that has been a recurring concern in our cobalt-focused coverage.

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    Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.

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