Athabasca Basin

The Athabasca Basin is a sedimentary basin on the Canadian Shield of northern Saskatchewan and Alberta. It is an area that has undergone significant subsidence, and has been infilled with sand (up to 1000 m thick in places) that has been weakly lithified into sedimentary rocks. The Athabasca Basin is famous for hosting the world’s highest grade uranium deposits, and it supplies about 20% of the world’s uranium.

Athona Deposit

The Athona Deposit is a gold deposit located within Fortune Bay Corp.’s Goldfields Property. Outcropping at surface, it was discovered in the 1930’s, and has been drill tested and sampled to enable calculation of how much gold is present, currently estimated to be 250,000 ounces in the Indicated Mineral Resource category and 98,000 ounces in the Inferred Mineral Resource category.

Au

Symbol for the element gold on the period table of the elements.

Board of Directors

A board of directors is a group of people who represent the interests of a company's shareholders. It also provides guidance and advice to an organization's CEO and executive team. A board provides general oversight without getting involved in day-to-day operations.

Box Deposit

The Box Deposit is a gold deposit located within Fortune Bay Corp.’s Goldfields Property. Outcropping at surface, it was discovered in the 1930’s, and has been drill tested and sampled to enable calculation of how much gold is present, currently estimated to be 730,000 ounces in the Indicated Mineral Resource category and 113,000 ounces in the Inferred Mineral Resource category.

Box Mine

The Box Deposit was mined on a small scale for gold by Consolidated Mining and Smelting of Canada Ltd. (“Cominco”) during the period 1939 to 1942, as an underground operation, yielding approximately 64,000 ounces of gold from 1.3 Mt of ore.

Breccia

A rock consisting of angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. Often associated with faults, where rocks moving against each other are broken into fragments and then later cemented together.

Basement-hosted uranium

This is a term typically referring to a sub-type of uranium deposit occurring in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan Canada, which hosts extremely high-grade unconformity-related uranium deposits that occur in proximity to the unconformity (contact) between the underlying basement (older) rocks and the overlying sandstone. When the majority of the uranium mineralization lies within the basement rocks, it is referred to as a “basement-hosted” uranium deposit (e.g. Fission’s Triple R deposit, or Nexgen’s Arrow deposit). Mineralization may extend for hundreds of metres into the basement rocks.

Boron (B)

A chemical element with the symbol “B”, often used as a “pathfinder” element for uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin. Boron is one of the components of dravite, a type of clay that can be generated by alteration during the deposition of a uranium, and is often found (through geochemical analysis) in an “alteration halo” around a uranium deposit. Boron can also occur naturally (e.g. in minerals such as tourmaline), and its presence does not always indicate possible proximity to a uranium deposit.

Beaverlodge-style deposits

Refers to a type of uranium deposit occurring in the Beaverlodge District in northern Saskatchewan. These were the earliest uranium deposits discovered and mined in Canada. They differ from other Athabasca Basin high-grade deposits (unconformity-related) in that the mineralization is typically hosted in brecciated basement granite as opposed to being associated with mineralizing processes at the unconformity (contact) between the Athabasca Basin sediments and the underlying older basement rocks. Beaverlodge-style deposits are typically of lower grade and older than the unconformity-related deposits of the Athabasca Basin.

Beaverlodge District

Refers to an area in northern Saskatchewan around the town of Uranium City where several similar uranium deposits (sometimes called Beaverlodge-style Deposits) were discovered and mined in the mid- to late-1900’s. 

Beaverlodge Domain

The Beaverlodge Domain is one of the Precambrian Domains that make up the Rae Craton. It is subdivided into several stratigraphic groups, one of which is the Murmac Bay Group which hosts the Box and Athona gold deposits within Fortune Bay Corp.’s Goldfields Project.

Beaverlodge Mine

The Beaverlodge Mine (also referred to as the El Dorado Mine) is a decommissioned uranium mine and mill that produced uranium in northern Saskatchewan for 30 years, from 1952 to 1982. Decommissioning was completed in 1985. 

Backfill and backfilling

Backfill is a term used to describe material used to fill cavities (i.e., mining stopes) during mining activities. Backfilling is used during open-pit mining around areas where historical underground mining was carried out, to eliminate the risk of ground collapsing where the void spaces are encountered. Backfilling can also be used to dispose of mine mill tailings underground.

Balance Sheet

The term balance sheet refers to a financial statement that reports a company's assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity at a specific point in time.

Bleaching

In geology, bleaching refers to hydrothermal alteration of rocks into clay minerals. Bleached rocks are typically light grey to white in colour and are soft due to their high clay content. Bleaching in rocks can indicate the nearby presence of a hydrothermal system and can therefore be used as a possible indicator of nearby mineralization.

By-Product

A secondary, economically profitable commodity worked from ore deposits in which other commodities are dominant. In some cases the revenue from the by-products can exceed that from the dominant commodity depending on commodity prices, e.g. gold from porphyry copper deposits.

Carbon-based gold recovery

This refers to a method of gold recovery in a commercial mill whereby gold ore is crushed and ground to a targeted size range and then introduced to leach tanks with a cyanide solution which dissolves the liberated gold into the solution. Activated carbon is introduced to absorb the gold from the solution, the carbon is filtered out, and gold is then recovered by electrowinning.

Carbon in Pulp (CIP)

This is a gold recovery method used in commercial mills that involves the sequential leach then absorption of gold from ore. During the CIP stage, pulp (crushed and ground ore) flows through several agitated tanks where sodium cyanide and oxygen have been added to dissolve gold into solution. In the absorption stage, this solution flows through several agitated tanks containing activated carbon. Gold absorbs onto the activated carbon, which flows countercurrent to the pulp, while screens separate the barren pulp from the gold-loaded carbon. Gold is then recovered by electrowinning.

Carbon in Leach (CIL)

This is a gold recovery method used in commercial mills that involves a simultaneous leach and absorption process. This method was developed for processing gold ores that contain complicating materials (such as natural absorptive carbon) that reduce gold yield by attracting and trapping gold. Simultaneous leaching and absorption help minimize this problem.

Chiapas

Southernmost state in Mexico.

CIM

The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum is a not-for-profit technical society of professionals in the Canadian minerals, metals, materials and energy industries. CIM produces and publishes technical guidance and rules for reporting and displaying information from mineral properties owned by companies listed on Canadian exchanges.

Camsell Portage

Camsell Portage is a northern settlement in Saskatchewan, located on the north-central shore of Lake Athabasca, to the west of Uranium City.

Chlorite

Diverse and common group of silicate clay minerals, often formed as a low-grade hydrothermal alteration product in mafic rocks.

Cobalt (Co)

Cobalt is one of the earth’s elements, occurring in many minerals and is commonly used in lithium-ion batteries and metallic alloys. It is often associated with unconformity uranium deposits, and can be used as a “pathfinder element” in the geochemical exploration for uranium (i.e., its presence, in association with other pathfinders, may indicate the nearby presence of a uranium deposit).

Copper (Cu)

Copper is one of the earth’s elements, occurring in many minerals and is most commonly used for electrical wires and cables. It is often associated with unconformity uranium deposits, and can be used as a “pathfinder element” in the geochemical exploration for uranium (i.e., its presence, in association with other pathfinders, may indicate the nearby presence of a uranium deposit).

Crushing & Grinding

This is the process of reducing the size of large pieces of ore blasted and excavated from an open pit or stope. In milling, ore is typically reduced to a uniform targeted size to optimize mill recovery of a certain commodity.

Capital Structure

Capital structure refers to the specific mix of debt and equity used to finance a company's assets and operations. From a corporate perspective, equity represents a more expensive, permanent source of capital with greater financial flexibility.
 

Cash Flow Statement

A Cash Flow Statement shows what a company is doing with its cash, where that cash is from, and how much of it stays within the business at the end of the reporting period. Unlike an income statement, the cash flow statement does not include non-cash items such as depreciation.

Closure Plan

In the mining industry, closure is the process of shutting down and rehabilitating a mine site after mining activities have ceased. In Saskatchewan this is a government mandated process, and companies are required to take out a financial assurance bond (when a mine is built) to cover costs for this. Typical closure activities include decontamination, asset removal, demolition and disposal, rehabilitation, and monitoring and reporting.

Concentrate

This is a term often used in a processing mill during recovery of a commodity. An example of this would be gold, where ore is subjected to crushing and grinding into fine sizes, and is then passed through a gravity separation circuit to separate lighter and heavier material (based on its density or specific gravity). This produces a “concentrate” that preferentially contains the targeted commodity, which is then processed for recovery. This allows for processing of smaller volumes of material to recover higher volumes of the target commodity.

Core Drilling

Core drilling uses an annular or round drill bit to extract a core or cylindrical sample of the drilled material. As the drill bit advances, the core is retained within a recovery tube. Drills typically advance on three metre “runs”, retrieving the recovery tube each time (pulling it up to surface with a winch) to extract the core, and then lowering the recovery tube back down for another run. This allows geologists to extract a continuous cylindrical tube or core of rock down the entire profile of the drill hole, for observation and sampling.

Core Sample

Core samples are discrete intervals of drill core that are collected for geochemical analysis. With spatially representative drill hole coverage, systematic sampling of drill core allows geologists to build a 3-dimensional model of the grade of a mineral deposit, providing a basis for mineral resource estimates. Sampling of drill core, as opposed to sampling of disaggregated drill chips recovered by drill methods other than coring, is usually preferable because it eliminates the possibility of sample contamination or dilution, generating reliable results.

Corporate Responsibility

Corporate responsibility (CR) is about the impact an organization makes on society, the environment and the economy. Having an effective CR program contributes positively to all stakeholders as well as adding value for the organization itself, and ensures it operates in a sustainable way.

Current Assets

Current assets (also called short-term assets) are assets a business uses, replaces and/or converts to cash within a normal operating cycle (typically less than 12 months). They are distinguished from long-term assets, which a business uses for more than a year.

Current Liabilities

Current liabilities (also called short-term liabilities) are debts a company must pay within a normal operating cycle, usually less than 12 months (as opposed to long-term liabilities, which are payable beyond 12 months).

Diamond Drilling

In mining and exploration this is used as a generic term to refer to core drilling (see separate definition), it is a reference to the fact that the cutting surface of round, cylindrical core drill bits are typically encrusted with small diamonds to increase their ability to cut through rock and to increase their durability and lifespan.

Director

A member of the board of people that manages or oversees the affairs of a business.

Drill Target

Refers to a target considered to have potential for a commodity of interest that requires drill testing for verification (e.g. may be covered with soil). Drill targets are typically defined by multiple “layers” of data, particularly including geophysical data and geochemical data.

Deposit

A deposit is an accumulation (above background concentration) of a single or multiple commodities through naturally occurring ore-forming processes. If commodities are present in high enough concentration (grade) and total amount, a deposit may be economically mined, but not all deposits are financially viable for mining.

Development

In mining and exploration this refers to activities carried out to establish the quantity of mineral resources present in a deposit, what the best way would be to mine and process them, and what the financial outcomes of building a mine would be. It can refer to a wide variety of activities including delineation drilling, metallurgical testing, geotechnical studies, environmental studies, and a range of desktop studies that contribute to an assessment of the financial viability of a deposit. It is the process of “developing” a deposit from discovery to mining.

The term “development” may also be used by certain regulators (e.g. the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment) to refer to a mining project that will have significant impacts and therefore requires federal or provincial screening (including environmental assessment culminating an environmental impact statement) prior to construction to ensure that it will be operated in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.

Debt-to-Equity ratio

The debt-to-equity (D/E) ratio indicates how much debt a company is using to finance its assets relative to the value of shareholders' equity.

Depreciation

The reduction in the value of an asset with the passage of time, often due to routine wear and tear through its intended use.

Dilution

“Share dilution” is when a company issues additional stock (e.g. to raise capital, to acquire additional projects/properties, to compensate directors and employees), thereby reducing the ownership proportion of current shareholders.

“Mining dilution” refers to the inclusion of waste material with ore during mining. This can be highly variable, and depends on the nature of the deposit and the type of mining used (e.g. underground mining can often be highly specific and can efficiently target ore, while open-pit mining can sometimes include higher proportions of unwanted waste material).

Dividends

In business, it is used to define the portion of earnings that a company distributes among shareholders each year. In other words, dividends are the income that the owners of the shares obtain as consideration for having invested in the company.

Doré

A doré bar is a semi-pure alloy of gold and silver. It is usually created at the site of a mine and then transported to a refinery for further purification.

Earnings per share

Earnings per share (EPS) is calculated as a company's profit divided by the outstanding shares of its common stock. The resulting number serves as an indicator of a company's profitability. It is common for a company to report EPS that is adjusted for extraordinary items and potential share dilution. The higher a company's EPS, the more profitable it is considered to be.

Electrowinning

Electrowinning (or electroextraction) is the process whereby metals, such as gold, silver and copper, are recovered from a solution by means of electrolytic chemical reaction (by passing an electrical current through the solution). Electrorefining uses a similar process to remove impurities from a metal.

Exploration

The search for commodities that are present in high enough concentrations and amounts to be profitably mined.

Environmental Assessment (EA)

This refers to work carried out to constrain the potential environmental, economic, social and cultural effects of a development (e.g. a mine). While the specifics and nomenclature vary from country to country, it is typically a government-mandated and supervised process, including a wide variety of environmental and related studies, that culminates in an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) documenting baseline conditions, expected impacts of the development, mitigations, monitoring and planned closure/rehabilitation activities.

In Canada, Environmental Assessment is often used interchangeably with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), indicating the conceptual process of assessing the environmental impacts of a development (e.g. a mine).

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

In Canada, Environmental Impact Assessment refers to the process of assessing the environmental impacts of a development (e.g. a mine). 

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

In Canada, an Environmental Impact Statement is a written representation of the findings of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). It will include a description of the development (e.g. a mine) and the baseline environmental conditions, and will assess the impacts and effects on valued components and will define monitoring and mitigation procedures in place to protect the valued components. An important part of the EIS is an interest-based engagement and consultation to define effects on Indigenous Communities.

Entrepreneur

A person who creates and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

Equity Markets

An equity market is a market in which shares of companies are issued and traded, either through exchanges or over-the-counter markets. Also known as the stock market, it is one of the most vital areas of a market economy. It gives companies access to capital to grow their business, and investors a piece of ownership in a company with the potential to realize gains in their investment based on the company's future performance.

Flowsheet

In mining, the term flowsheet is used to refer to a figure/illustration providing a visual summary of the ore stream in a mine’s mill or process plant. It typically includes summaries of the processes (ore feed, crushing, grinding and recovery), the amount and physical screened (sieved) size of material at each stage, and the significant inputs (e.g. water, other reactants) and outputs (tailings, commodity outputs).

Fond du Lac

Fond du Lac is a remote northern community found on the east side of Lake Athabasca, Saskatchewan. The community is isolated, with no permanent road connections to southern Saskatchewan. It’s accessible by air year-round, by boat in the summer and, in winter, by an ice road that connects it with Stony Rapids to the east.

Forward-Looking Statement

A forward-looking statement is a prediction of future events or outcomes, based on current conditions and activities, that may not be realized due to unforeseen circumstances. 

When made by companies, these types of statements may be interpreted by shareholders as certainties and may be used as a basis for decision making on potential investment in the company. Companies typically use disclaimers and safe harbor provisions to mitigate their risk and to inform shareholders of the risks associated with these statements. 

Fault

A fault is a naturally occurring break in a rock resulting from compressive or extensional forces. Faults can occur on a centimeter-scale to a continental scale and can extend to great depths in the earth’s crust. They often act as preferential conduits for fluid movement, and are associated with several ore-forming processes.

Feasibility Study

This is a comprehensive technical and economic study of a mineral project to demonstrate that extraction is justified (economically mineable). The results of the study may reasonably serve as the basis for a final decision by a proponent or financial institution to proceed with the development of the project. The confidence level of the study will be higher than that of a Pre-Feasibility Study. A “FS” is typically the culmination of detailed development work that will justify the construction of a mine.

Free cash flow

Free cash flow (FCF) represents the cash that a company generates after accounting for cash outflows to support operations and maintain its capital assets. Unlike earnings or net income, free cash flow is a measure of profitability that excludes the non-cash expenses of the income statement and includes spending on equipment and assets as well as changes in working capital from the balance sheet.

Goldfields Project

Fortune Bay’s 100% owned flagship Goldfields Project is located in northern Saskatchewan and is estimated to contain 979,900 ounces of gold in the Indicated category and 210,800 ounces of gold in the Inferred category, combined between the Box and Athona gold deposits, through a mineral resource estimate completed in  September 2022.

A Preliminary Economic Assessment completed in October 2022 by Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. demonstrated robust economics, with an after-tax net present value (“NPV”) (discount rate 5%) of C$285M, internal rate of return (“IRR”) of 35.2% and payback of 1.7 years estimated with gold price of US$1,650 per ounce.

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Gulf of St. Lawrence

South coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

Geology

The science that deals with the earth's physical structure and substance, its history, and the processes that act on it.

Grade

Grade is defined as the ratio of the mass of a commodity to the mass of the ore it is contained in. It is expressed differently depending on the nature of the commodity, varying from percentage (% or parts per hundred, for lower value commodities such as copper where a high grade with high tonnage is required for deposits to be economically viable) to grams per tonne (g/t, or parts per million for higher value commodities such as gold where deposits can be economically viable with low grades). This can range to extremes, where for example the grade of some diamond deposits is expressed as carats (1 carat = 0.2 grams) per hundred tonnes, or parts per 500 million, due to the extremely high value of some diamonds.

Gravity Circuit

Or “gravity recovery”, refers to a recovery process often included in gold mills whereby crushed and ground ore is subjected to a gravity separation, a process that separates the denser (heavier) material from the less-dense (lighter) material. This is an effective method of concentrating gold where it is coarse grained, occurring in discrete particles that are liberated from ore by the crushing and grinding process. The concentrated “heavy” fraction will contain the gold particles and other heavy minerals such as sulphides, and it is sent directly for leaching and gold recovery. All the gravity rejects, or “light” fraction, are then sent for bulk leaching to dissolve and liberate fine gold that is not recoverable by gravity-based methods. The size distribution of the gold in a deposit will control how much gold reports to each of the “heavy” and “light” fractions. If coarse gold is present, gravity circuits can significantly improve overall mill recovery efficiency by isolating this material into a small volume at an early stage.

Heap leaching

Heap leaching involves stacking of crushed/ground metal-bearing ore into a heap on an impermeable pad, irrigating the ore with a chemical solution to dissolve the sought-after metals, and collecting the solution as it percolates from the base of the heap. Targeted metals can then be recovered from the leachant solution rather than from the ore itself, reducing the overall processing cost.

Hematite

Also spelled haematite, this is a mineral composed of iron and oxygen that constitutes the world’s most important source of iron. Hematite can be deposited when iron-bearing fluids move from a reducing chemical environment to an oxidizing chemical environment (e.g. as fluids move through a fault zone across a major lithological unconformity) and the iron combines with newly available oxygen and precipitates out of solution.

High grade

“High grade” is a qualitative, subjective term used in industry to describe deposits containing grades at the higher end of the typical spectrum at which specific commodities normally occur in deposits. In combination with other factors (e.g. total amount of the commodity present, depth of orebody) it carries connotations for the profitability of a deposit and the methods by which it can be mined. Low grade deposits typically require large total tonnages of ore to be economically feasible, and need to be shallower-seated to be more cheaply mined through open pit methods. High grade deposits can be financially viable with smaller tonnages, and can be mined successfully with more expensive underground mining methods. 

Historical Estimate

This is a term used in National Instrument 43-101 to refer to an estimate of the quantity, grade, or metal or mineral content of a deposit that an issuer has not verified as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve, and which was prepared before the issuer acquiring, or entering into an agreement to acquire, an interest in the property that contains the deposit. These types of estimates may not have been prepared in accordance with current best-practices. 

Income Statement

An income statement reports a company's financial performance over a specific accounting period.

Indicated mineral resource

The Canadian Institute of Mining defines an Indicated Mineral Resource as that for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape and physical characteristics are estimated with sufficient confidence to allow the application of Modifying Factors in sufficient detail to support mine planning and evaluation of the economic viability of the deposit.

There is no exact definition of when these criteria are met, and the application of this classification is a subjective decision that is made by the Qualified Person responsible for the Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE). All MRE’s are subject to uncertainty, varying with the amount and quality of supporting information. When the uncertainty in the volume, tonnage and grade of material is sufficiently reduced (typically in the ~15 to 30% range), a Qualified Person will designate the Mineral Resource as “Indicated”. This is higher confidence category than Inferred, but lower confidence than Measured. Indicated resources can be used for higher confidence financial studies like Pre-Feasibility and Feasibility Studies.

Inferred mineral resource

The Canadian Institute of Mining defines an Inferred Mineral Resource as that for which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of limited geological evidence and sampling. Geological evidence is sufficient to imply but not verify geological and grade or quality continuity.

This is the lowest confidence mineral resource category (applied by the Qualified Person where uncertainty in the estimate may broadly range around ~50%). Inferred Mineral Resources can be used in low-confidence scoping studies of the economic viability of a project (i.e. a Preliminary Economic Assessment, or PEA), but cannot be used in higher confidence financial studies (Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility Studies) and cannot be converted into Mineral Reserves.

Ixhuatán Copper-Gold Project

The 100% Fortune Bay Corp. owned Ixhuatán Project, located in Chiapas State, Mexico, is a copper-gold project that includes a historical gold resource (1.04 million oz Measured & Indicated; 0.70 million oz Inferred), plus significant exploration and development upside.

Leach

Leaching is a mass transfer process which takes place when a solution (leachate) percolates through material, dissolving and transporting soluble compounds as it goes. Leaching is the natural mechanism by which water-soluble compounds from soil or waste are washed out by ground water movement.

Long-term debt

Long-term debt is debt that matures in more than one year and is often treated differently from short-term debt. For an issuer, long-term debt is a liability that must be repaid while owners of debt (e.g., bonds) account for them as assets.

Market Capitalization

Market Cap—or market capitalization—refers to the total value of all a company's shares of stock. It is calculated by multiplying the price of a stock by its total number of outstanding shares. For example, a company with 20 million shares selling at $50 a share would have a market cap of $1 billion.

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is the science of extracting metals from their ores and modifying the metals for use. Metallurgical testing of ore samples from deposits is used to define all aspects of how ore from a deposit can be best processed through a mill to recover the targeted commodity. 

Merrill-Crowe

This is a gold recovery method used in commercial mills. As with carbon-based recovery methods, ore is crushed and ground, and leached with a cyanide solution to dissolve the gold. The gold-bearing solution is then cleaned, filtered and deoxygenated prior to the introduction of zinc dust, which causes the gold to precipitate out of solution. This is a more expensive method than carbon-based gold recovery, and is typically used for gold deposits with high quantities of silver (which preferentially adsorbs onto carbon ahead of gold).

Mill

Mill or “process plant” is a generic term used in the mining industry to refer to any facility in which one or more commodities are concentrated and separated from ore. This typically involves crushing/grinding the ore into finer sizes and then passing the resulting material through a process that concentrates the targeted commodity (this varies significantly depending on the commodity type) to the point where it can be separated out, recovered, and sold.

Mineral Reserve

A Mineral Reserve is defined by the Canadian Institute of Mining as an estimate of the economically extractable or mineable part of a mineral resource. A Mineral Reserve is the part of a (Indicated or Measured, but not Inferred) Mineral Resource that can be mined, as demonstrated by a financial/technical study such as a Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility Study. 

Mine

A place where a mineral reserve is mined.

Mineral Resource

A Mineral Resource is a concentration or occurrence of solid material of economic interest. For companies listed on Canadian exchanges, a mineral  occurrence may not be referred to as a Mineral Resource unless a study by a Qualified Person has concluded that there are reasonable prospects for the eventual economic extraction of this material, at which point it will be classified, based on the confidence with which its volume, tonnage and grade are constrained, as either Inferred, Indicated or Measured Mineral Resources.

Measured Mineral Resource

The Canadian Institute of Mining defines a Measured Mineral Resource as that for which quantity, grade or quality, densities, shape, and physical characteristics are estimated with confidence sufficient to allow the

application of Modifying Factors to support detailed mine planning and final evaluation of the economic viability of the deposit. This is the highest level of Mineral Resource classification and is usually applied by a Qualified Person when the volume, tonnage and grade of a deposit is effectively known, with an uncertainty of less than ~10%.

Mineral Resource Estimation

This refers to the process of defining the size, tonnage and grade of a mineral deposit. Delineation core drilling is typically used to define the size and shape of the deposit, allowing geological modelling of the volume of the ore body. Testing of the bulk density of the ore then allows for the estimation of the tonnage. Assay of a representative spatial coverage of (usually drill core) samples is used to define the grade, which can then be combined with the tonnage to estimate the total amount of the contained commodity (or commodities). In Canada this process is carried out by a Qualified Person, who must also then demonstrate that there is a reasonable prospect for the eventual economic extraction of the deposit before referring to it as a Mineral Resource. Based on the amount of information available, and the modelled level of uncertainty in the estimate, the Qualified Person will then assign a resource confidence classification (Inferred, Indicated or Measured).

Modifying Factors

In mining, Modifying Factors are considerations used to convert Mineral Resources to Mineral Reserves (through a study identifying which portions of the Mineral Resources can be profitably mined). These include, but are not restricted to, mining, processing, metallurgical, infrastructure, economic, marketing, legal, environmental, social and governmental factors.

Murmac Project

The 100% Fortune Bay Corp. owned Murmac Uranium Project has potential for high-grade unconformity-related, basement-hosted uranium deposits typical of the Athabasca Basin margin. The Project hosts +30 km of prospective (EM) conductor corridors, and first-pass drilling in 2022 discovered elevated uranium (>100 ppm) in 6 of 15 holes, including values up to 0.18% U3O8 from individual assay samples.

Mineral Claims

Mineral Claims are areas of land for which a company has acquired legal title to explore for, or mine, certain commodities. Different jurisdictions have differing terminology for these (e.g. dispositions, mineral permits, mining claims, licenses etc.) and differing regulations concerning tenure periods and expenditure requirements to maintain the title in good standing.

Net debt

Net debt shows how much cash would remain if all debts were paid off and if a company has enough liquidity to meet its debt obligations. Net debt is calculated by subtracting a company's total cash and cash equivalents from its total short-term and long-term debt.

Net income

Net income, also called net earnings, is sales minus cost of goods sold, general expenses, taxes, and interest.

NI 43-101

National Instrument 43-101 is a Canadian Institute of Mining document that defines the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. It acts in the public interest to standardize and define the terminology used and required standards for the issuance of Technical Reports for public dissemination.

NI 43-101 Form F1

Form F1 is a Technical Report template issued by the Canadian Institute of Mining, in conjunction with the NI 43-101 Standards of Disclosure, that provides direct guidance on the structure and required content for a Technical Report on a Mineral Project.

Open Pit

Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining, is a mining technique that extracts minerals from an open pit at surface, usually through conventional blasting, shoveling and hauling. Open-pit mining is the most common method used throughout the world for mineral mining, and is used when ore deposits are found at or close to the surface of the earth.

Ore

A naturally occurring solid material from which a metal or valuable mineral can be profitably extracted.

PEA

A Preliminary Economic Assessment, or PEA, is a scoping level study, carried out at lower confidence than a Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility Study, that includes an economic analysis of the potential viability of mineral resources. As a scoping level study, a PEA may include lower confidence Inferred Mineral Resources, but is not permitted to report Mineral Reserves.

Price earnings ratio (P/E)

The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is a ratio for valuing a publicly-traded company by comparing its current share price to its per-share earnings

Probable Mineral Reserve

A Probable Mineral Reserve is the economically mineable part of an Indicated or Measured Mineral Resource, as defined through a Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility Study. Probable Mineral Reserves are stated by a Qualified Person at a lower level of confidence than for Proven Mineral Reserves.

Proven Mineral Reserve

A Proven Mineral Reserve is the economically mineable part of a Measured Mineral Resource, as defined through a Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility Study. A

Proven Mineral Reserve classification implies a high degree of confidence in the Modifying Factors. Application of this category implies that the Qualified Person has the highest degree of confidence in the estimate, and does not consider there to be any possibility for economically significant error in the estimate.

Qualified Person

NI 43-101 defines a Qualified Person (QP) as an engineer or geoscientist with at least 5 years of relevant professional experience, holding a membership in good standing with a professional association. QP’s act as authors on Technical Reports (or sections thereof) issued under NI 43-101 and take professional responsibility for the content and substance of these reports. Technical Reports cannot be issued without being certified by a QP.

Reclamation

In mining, reclamation is the combined process by which adverse environmental effects of surface mining are minimized and mined lands are returned to a beneficial end use. End uses may be open space, wildlife habitat, agriculture, or residential and commercial development.

Recovery

In the mining industry, recovery is the amount of a commodity extracted from ore as a percentage of the total commodity content in the ore. For example, operating at high efficiency, a gold mill at an operating mine may have a recovery of 97%, leaving only 3% of the total gold content unrecovered in the tailings. 

Refining

Refining is the process applied to mined material to remove undesirable materials/minerals and separate or purify the desired elements. For example, a gold process plant may produce Doré, an alloy of gold and silver, which is then refined to remove the silver and generate the pure gold that is desired as the outcome of the process.

Return on equity

Return on equity (ROE) is a measure of financial performance calculated by dividing net income by shareholders' equity.

Royalty

A royalty is a fee imposed on either the amount of a commodity produced at a mine or the revenue or profit generated by the sale of products from a mine. This can be imposed by local, state or federal governments, or it can be imposed to compensate other entities retaining some form of interest in the mine.

Sandstone-hosted uranium

This is a term typically referring to a sub-type of uranium deposit occurring in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan Canada, which hosts extremely high-grade unconformity-related uranium deposits that occur at the unconformity (contact) between the underlying basement (older) rocks and the overlying sandstone. When the majority of the uranium mineralization lies within the overlying sandstone, it is referred to as a “sandstone-hosted” uranium deposit. Unlike basement-hosted uranium deposits (which usually contain mostly uranium), sandstone-hosted uranium deposits often contain other metals in significant concentrations, and can also be referred to as “polymetallic” deposits. 

Share

Shares represent ownership of a company. When an individual buys shares in your company, they become one of its owners. Shareholders choose who runs a company and are involved in making key decisions, such as whether a business should be sold.

Shareholder’s equity

Shareholders' equity is the amount that the owners of a company have invested in their business. This includes the money they've directly invested and the accumulation of income the company has earned and that has been reinvested since inception.

Shares outstanding

Shares outstanding and floating stock are different measures of the number of shares of a particular company's stock. They are two of three share-number metrics that investors often look at to get a comprehensive overview of a company’s stock shares: authorized shares, outstanding shares, and floating shares. Authorized shares refer to the maximum number of shares that a corporation is legally permitted to issue; it includes already-issued stock, along with shares that have the management's approval but have not, yet, been released onto the trading market—including stock options. Outstanding shares include those held by shareholders and company insiders. Floating shares indicate the number of shares actually available for trading.

Stockpile

A stope is a dug-out tunnel or space left behind when underground mining operations have removed ore. They are created by drilling holes, placing explosives, blasting and then excavating the broken ore. Stopes are the underground working faces where ore is mined, and they are accessed by underground developments including shafts, adits, drifts, cross-cuts, descents and so on.

Stocks

A stock is a financial instrument representing part ownership in single or multiple organizations. A share is a single unit of stock.

Stoney Rapids

Stony Rapids is a small municipal hamlet in northern Saskatchewan. The community is located 82 kilometres south of the Saskatchewan and NWT border. The community is adjacent to the Fond du Lac River which flows west into Lake Athabasca.

Strike Project

The 100% Fortune Bay Corp. owned Strike Uranium Project has potential for high-grade unconformity-related, basement-hosted uranium deposits in a setting similar to other discoveries on the margin of the Athabasca Basin. First pass drill testing of prospective EM conductor corridors in 2022 recovered anomalous uranium (>100 ppm) in 3 of 9 drill holes, with a maximum assay of up to 0.43% U3O8.

Sustainable Development

In mining, this term contends that a development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It means a mine is financially profitable, technically appropriate, environmentally sound and socially responsible, leaving behind no overall negative legacy.

Tailings

In mining, tailings are the waste material that is left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are discharged from a mine mill, and are stored in a variety of facilities such as tailings ponds, landfill sites or, if possible, the can be used to back fill open pit mines or underground developments when a mine finishes operating.

Tailings Dam

A tailings dam or pond is an embankment dam used to store byproducts of mining operations after ore is separated from the gangue. Tailings can be liquid, solid, or a slurry of fine particles.

Total cash costs

Total cash costs are defined as on-site mining costs plus on-site G&A, royalties/production taxes, permitting/community costs related to current operations, inventory write-down less by-product credits. The total cash cost is often expressed as US$ per ounce of gold sold.

Technical Report

In mining, a report prepared and filed in accordance with NI 43-101 and Form 43-101 F1 that includes, in summary form, all material scientific and technical information in respect of a subject property as of the effective date of the technical report. Technical Reports are used by companies to convey information to the public about mineral projects, which can be anywhere in the world, but if the company is listed on a Canadian stock exchange they are required to prepare a Technical Report for public dissemination of information. Technical Reports are reviewed by Securities Commissions before they are approved for release to ensure they conform with the regulated standards.

Uranium (U)

A radioactive metal element used in the production of nuclear power which is carbon-free, scalable and available 24 hour a day. The world’s top producers of uranium are Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia and Canada. 

Unconformity

An unconformity is a term that geologists use to describe the contact between two rock units that reflects a time gap (usually a period of weathering and erosion), where the underlying rocks are older than the overlying rocks. An example of this would be a granite landscape that is subject to weathering and erosion for a period of time, followed by subsidence of that landscape creating a sedimentary basin, which then filled in with sediments that were later lithified (turned into rock). This would create an underlying granite separated from an overlying sedimentary rock by an unconformity.

Unconformity-related uranium deposits

This describes uranium deposits that occur below, at or above major unconformities (for example the basement/sandstone unconformity in the Athabasca Basin).

These types of deposits are generated when large volumes of fluid containing dissolved metal (e.g. uranium) move through rocks, often channeled by structures and faults that create pathways for the fluids to move. If these fluids meet an oxidation/reduction (REDOX) front, where the chemical conditions abruptly change (e.g. at an unconformity), the dissolved metal will no longer be soluble, and will be forced to drop out of solution, creating a deposit at that location.

Vein

In geology, a vein is a sheetlike body of crystallized minerals within a rock. Veins form when minerals carried by an aqueous solution within the rock mass are deposited through precipitation into a fault or crack in the rock that creates space for the fluids to move into and through.

Visible gold

Native gold which is discernible, in a hand specimen, to the unaided eye. 

Ya' thi Néné

Ya’thi Néné (“lands of the north”) Lands and Resources is a non-profit organization owned by the seven Athabasca Basin communities of Hatchet Lake Denesułiné First Nation, Black Lake Denesułiné First Nation, Fond du Lac Denesułiné First Nation and the municipalities of Stony Rapids, Uranium City, Wollaston Lake, and Camsell Portage. Ya’thi Néné acts to protect the lands and waters of the Athabasca Basin for the long-term benefit of its Denesułiné First Nations and Athabasca communities, guided by their knowledge, traditions, and ambitions, while being a respected partner in relations with industries, governments, and organizations who seek to develop the Athabasca Basin’s resources.