Announcement • Apr 14
Fortune Minerals Limited, Annual General Meeting, Jun 23, 2026 Fortune Minerals Limited, Annual General Meeting, Jun 23, 2026. Announcement • Jan 21
Fortune Minerals Completes Cobalt Sulphate Test Work Fortune Minerals Limited announced that it has successfully concluded the validation test work for an optimized hydrometallurgical flowsheet to produce battery grade cobalt sulphate heptahydrate for the NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project ("NICO Project") in Canada. The results verified that a high-quality cobalt sulphate Heptahydrate product can be generated with very good metal recoveries from a simplified process flow sheet to help mitigate capital and operating costs escalation for the NICO Project. The NICO Project will provide a reliable North American supply of battery grade cobalt sulphate, bismuth ingots (12% of global reserves), and copper cement - with more than one million ounces of in-situ gold as a highly liquid and countercyclical co-product. The objective of the recent test work was to validate improvements to the hydrometallurgical process Fortune will use to produce a high-purity cobalt sulphate heptahydrate product for the lithium-ion rechargeable battery industry. The work was carried out at SGS Canada Inc. (“SGS”) at its world class Lakefield, Ontario metallurgical facilities. Fortune previously announced partial results for this work confirming the pressure oxidation conditions for autoclave processing NICO Project cobalt concentrate that had previously been determined in a 2008 pilot plant. The current work verified process optimizations at two different concentrate grades and achieved extractions of 97% for cobalt and 74% for copper at the design feed grade versus 95% for cobalt and 70% for copper in the 2008 pilot plant. Extractions using an off-specification low-grade cobalt feed were 95% for cobalt and 79% for copper, confirming the earlier pilot plant metal recoveries (see July 7, 2025, news release). The recent tests also confirmed these recoveries after blending the cobalt concentrate with residues from the bismuth leach circuit prior to autoclave processing in order to capture all of the recoverable gold in one process stream, while also recovering additional cobalt and copper that had deported to the bismuth circuit. Gold recoveries in the recent tests were between 97% and 98% compared to 95% in the earlier 2008 pilot plant work. The recent test work also indicates that a direct pre-neutralization sequence of the autoclave discharge would be beneficial at bench scale, removing about 99% of the contained arsenic without oxygenation or heating, and without incurring any cobalt losses. This improvement to the process flowsheet indicates the equipment sizes can likely be reduced to lower the capital and operating costs for the Alberta Refinery. The recently completed test work also focused on verification of the downstream solution purification - consisting of manganese removal, solvent extraction purification, and evaporation and crystallization of a battery grade cobalt sulphate heptahydrate product. The purity of the cobalt sulphate met the 99.99% (20.959% cobalt in sulphate) specification received from lithium-ion battery manufacturers and the heavy metal impurities also met the specified limits. New Risk • Dec 26
New minor risk - Shareholder dilution The company's shareholders have been diluted in the past year. Increase in shares outstanding: 16% This is considered a minor risk. Shareholder dilution occurs when there is an increase in the number of shares on issue that is not proportionally distributed between all shareholders. Often due to the company raising equity capital or some options being converted into stock. All else being equal, if there are more shares outstanding then each existing share will be entitled to a lower proportion of the company's total earnings, thus reducing earnings per share (EPS). While dilution might not always result in lower EPS (like if the company is using the capital to fund an EPS accretive acquisition) in a lot cases it does, along with lower dividends per share and less voting power at shareholder meetings. Currently, the following risks have been identified for the company: Major Risks Less than 1 year of cash runway based on free cash flow trend (-CA$3.3m free cash flow). Negative equity (-CA$11m). Earnings have declined by 18% per year over the past 5 years. Revenue is less than US$1m. Minor Risks Share price has been volatile over the past 3 months (16% average weekly change). Shareholders have been diluted in the past year (16% increase in shares outstanding). Market cap is less than US$100m (CA$50.4m market cap, or US$36.8m). 
