11:04 AM EDT, 05/16/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Fortune Minerals ( FTMDF ) shares on Thursday soared 42% on last look after reporting the governments of Canada and the United States agreed to provide additional funding for the company's vertically integrated NICO cobalt, gold, bismuth, copper critical-minerals asset in Canada.

The Canadian government agreed to provide contribution funding for up to $7.5 million to support 75% of the costs for additional engineering and test work, totaling about $10 million through the Global Partnerships Initiative.

Natural Resources Canada is the funding department for the initiative and Fortune will provide additional due diligence information and complete a contribution agreement over the next few weeks.

The total amount of non-dilutive funding that Fortune expects to receive from the US and Canadian governments is about $16.2 million.

Separately, the US Department of Defense has awarded the company about US$6.4 million ($8.7 million) grant under the Defense Production Act Title III program to expand the domestic capacity and production of cobalt for the battery and high-strength alloy supply chains.

Fortune shares were last seen up $0.025 to $0.085 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Price: 0.09, Change: +0.03, Percent Change: +41.67