Fortune Bay (FOR) - Uranium and Gold Exploration Funded

Fortune Bay Corp. is a junior exploration and development company focused on its 100% owned gold and uranium projects. The flagship project of the company is the Goldfields gold project located in Saskatchewan with another gold asset, the Ixhuatán gold project, located in Mexico. The company recently entered the uranium space with the acquisition of two uranium projects, namely the Strike and Murmac uranium exploration projects. The Strike and Murmac uranium projects are located close to the Goldfield gold project and have the potential to host high-grade uranium mineralisation.

Matthew Gordon spoke to Dale Verran the CEO of Fortune Bay Corp (TSX-V:FOR) to discuss the company’s recent activities. 

Company Overview

The rationale behind the company’s entry into the uranium market is based on the growth potential the uranium market currently possesses, due to the global attempt to move to cleaner forms of energy generation.

The company is currently underway with the second phase of its exploration program at the Goldfields project. The exploration drilling program is planned to be 2,000 m of diamond drilling and will test up to six targets identified by the company. Fortune Bay Corp. plans to conduct a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) of the Goldfields project in the future. The PEA will be conducted by an independent engineering house enabling the company to continue with its planned exploration programs concurrently.

Fortune Bay Corp. also recently initiated a ground gravity survey at the northern portion of its Strike Uranium project. The results of the survey will be used to prioritise targets for the company’s planned maiden exploration drilling program, scheduled to commence in the middle of 2022.

Fortune Bay Corp. proudly states that it is both a gold and uranium company with a cash position of CAD$ 6 million and a market valuation of CAD$ 25 million. The company is driven by a well-experienced management team.

Management

Fortune Bay Corp. is led by Dale Verran, who serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Verran has over 20 years of mining and mineral exploration experience ranging throughout the world. He has a track record of project generation, discovery and advancement in both the African as well as the Canadian mining and mineral environments. Verran has held various senior management positions at various internationally recognised companies, with his most recent position before Fortune Bay Corp. being Vice President (VP) of Exploration for Denison Mines Corp. He has previously also served as the Exploration Manager for Remote Exploration Services (Pty) Ltd., a large independent exploration group operating in Africa. Verran holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a Bachelor of Science in Geology (Honours) from the University of Cape Town and a Master of Science in Exploration Geology from Rhodes University.

Sarah Oliver is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Fortune Bay Corp. and has more than 10 years of experience in the accounting and finance industries. She worked at PwC Canada in their consulting and deals group, from where she became senior manager of the assurance practices department of the company. Olivier has experience in mergers and acquisitions, public and private financing deals as well as the implementation of accounting policy and controls.

Gareth Garlick is the Technical Director of Fortune Bay Corp. and has been involved in the international mining and mineral exploration industry for more than 20 years. Garlick has been involved in all aspects of a project’s life cycle from grassroots exploration to resource estimation and resource reconciliation on producing mines. Garlick served as senior geologist and consulting projects manager at Mineral Services Canada Inc., a consulting company based in Vancouver, Canada before joining Fortune Bay Corp. Garlick holds an honours degree in Geology from the University of Cape Town.

Rounding out the team as Exploration Manager is Eric Bort. Bort has been involved in the exploration industry of Northern Saskatchewan for the past 9 years through Cameco Corp. He has experience in the design, implementation and management of drilling programs. He has worked on various projects at various stages including grassroots exploration projects as well as advanced projects which include discovery and delineation. Bort is well versed in data management and 3D geological modelling.

The esteemed management team is tasked with advancing Fortune Bay Corp.’s gold, as well as now, uranium projects.

Projects

Fortune Bay Corp. recently acquired two uranium projects which lie within the Athabasca Basin, the world's leading source of high-grade uranium and that currently supplies about 20% of the world's uranium. The company’s diversification into uranium with the recent acquisitions has led many to wonder what Fortune Bay Corp. is? A gold or Uranium company? Dale Verran states:

“We’re probably both, at the moment. We have these 2 gold assets, they have resources. Across the categories, you’re looking at 3 Moz in gold across the projects and that really underpins our value, and our core asset there is the Goldfields project in Saskatchewan, where we’re focusing. But on the uranium’s side, we have these opportunities that really offer shareholders some tremendous upside, we believe, in the company.” 

The gold assets of the company include the Goldfields Gold project located in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada and the Ixhuatán Gold Project, located in Chiapas State, Mexico.

The Goldfields gold project is a 5,000-hectare property that comprises 22 mineral deposits and lies approximately 60 km south of the Saskatchewan and Northwest Territories provincial boundary. The project is a past-producing gold mine that produced 64,000 ounces of gold between 1939 and 1942. The project has seen over 1,000 drill holes and has also undergone various mining studies including a NI 43-101 compliant feasibility study in 2007 for the project’s Box deposit and a pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project’s Box and Athona deposits in 2011. 

The Box open-pit mine and mill development is fully permitted and received ministerial approval under the Environmental Assessment Act in May 2008. The company published an updated mineral resource estimate (MRE) of the project in 2021 with highlights thereof including 975,000 ounces of gold in the indicated category and 176,000 ounces of gold in the inferred category. The MRE also confirmed the project’s vast exploration and expansion opportunities.

The Ixhuatán Gold project of the company is a 4,176-hectare land package located southwest of the Santa Fe mine owned by Lahontan Gold Corp. The historical MRE of the project, which was conducted in 2006 shows 1.04 million ounces of gold and 4.4 million ounces of silver in the measured and indicated category with 0.7 million ounces of gold and 2.3 million ounces of silver in the inferred category. Fortune Bay Corp. aims to find a strategic partner for the Ixhuatán Gold project in the future.

The company’s recently acquired Uranium projects are the Strike and Murmac uranium projects. The Strike uranium project is a 10,000-hectare land package that lies 25 km west of Uranium City and the company’s goldfields gold project. The Strike uranium project possesses the potential of hosting high-grade unconformity-related, basement-hosted uranium deposits. The project is host to various high-grade (more than 1% U3O8) deposits, with anomalous radioactivity occurring in almost all basement lithological units of the property. The project has also seen production, with its Tena-zone producing more than 1,000 tons of ore, with reported grades of between 0.5% U3O8 and 3% U3O8. Fortune Bay Corp. verified the Tena Zone and Point Claims occurrence through geological investigation and confirmatory surface rock sampling in 2021 with the assay results of the sampling showing U3O8 grades of up to 1.75% at the Tena Zone deposit and 3.51% U3O8 at the Point Claims deposit.

The Murmac uranium project of the company is a 5,300-hectare land package that lies 15 km South of Uranium City. The project has seen approximately 150 historical drill holes between 1947 and 1987 and showed shallow high-grade drill intersections. The historical exploration initiatives have shown various high-grade uranium occurrences. The occurrence of a package of EM conductors covering a strike length of approximately 12 km was identified through airborne and ground EM surveys in the past. The EM conductors have been confirmed to represent graphite-bearing metasediments, which provide favourable settings for the formation of unconformity-related deposits. The company has conducted grab samples at various deposits of the project with some returning mineralisation of up to 6.04% U3O8.

Future

Fortune Bay Corp. plans on continuing to move its projects ahead in the coming year, with it well funded at a cash position of approximately USD$ 6 million. The company believes that even though it has recently diversified, it is not getting distracted from its objectives, only adding to them.

“We’re not getting distracted. We continue to march that gold asset along.”

The company plans on implementing a third of its funds to advance its Goldfields Gold project with the remaining two-thirds allocated toward the company’s uranium assets. The company believes that it is not showing favour with the split in allocated funds, with it believing that the third of its funds allocated towards the Goldfields Gold project will be sufficient to reach its planned objectives, Verran states:

“We raised enough to do what we wanted to on our Goldfields project this year, and that’s this phase of exploration drilling between the 2 deposits on the property, and advancing it through a PEA that’s budgeted, as I said not yet approved. We’re doing what we need to keep marching that gold project forward, but obviously 2 uranium projects at that earlier stage, we are at the exploration stage with those, they do require a bit more capital to really get those going.”

The company announced that it had commenced with the phase 2 exploration drilling at the Goldfields Gold project in early 2022. The company aims to make a new discovery at the project through the planned 2,000 m of diamond drilling. The company plans on testing 6 targets at the project that it identified through geological and geophysical assessment.

Fortune Bay Corp. has been underway with various scoping level studies aimed at identifying the ideal development path of the project. The company plans on publishing a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) by the end of 2022, from which it will initiate a feasibility study.

The company plans on advancing both the Strike and Murmac Uranium projects in the coming year with 2,500 m of exploration drilling planned at the Strike uranium project and 2,000 m planned at the Murmac uranium project. The exploration drilling program will comprise between 10 and 15 drill holes per project, with the number of holes subject to change and results driven. The company plans on completing its geophysical studies in the winter months, which include gravity and EM surveys at the Strike uranium project and EM surveys at the Murmac uranium project. The maiden exploration drilling of the Strike uranium project is scheduled to commence in May 2022 from where it will continue into the summer months.

To find out more, go to the Fortune Bay website