Where are we with tin?
In a sense, it’s the great unknown metal. Not exactly unwanted but not exactly glamourous either - not of real use as a hedge against inflation but still capable of real price action on its own.
More to the point, perhaps, for investors who like to play around at the more junior end of the market, there’s not too much of it about.
Tin is around 25 times rarer than copper and seven times rarer than lead in the Earth’s crust.
In absolute terms that still leaves some pretty sizeable occurrences and deposits to be tapped, but many of these are in jurisdictions that can be less than welcoming to the world’s mining companies, including China and Burma.
Indonesia is also a big player in tin and several South American countries have long-established track records of tin production but other less well-known mining jurisdictions, like Laos, Malaysia and Nigeria also feature prominently.
The biggest pure-play tin producers are not names you’ve heard of, unless you are in pretty deep – they include Chinese companies like Yunnan Tin, Yunnan Chengfeng and Minsur, and PT Timah.
Going tin mining can be hard work, especially if the economics make it unpalatable, as they did at the end of the 20th century. Back then, when the bottom fell out of the tin market, all but the most diversified and robust of the miners were driven away, and it’s taken a long time for interest to revive at the bottom end of the market.
Interest revived
That is happening now though, stimulated by a new and avowedly robust outlook for tin as a key constituent of future technological development.
The first clarion call of this resurgence of tin was sounded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) back in 2018 when, in a presentation that was cited by Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) at the time, the argument was made that of all metals – including lithium, zinc and cobalt – the one most likely to benefit from technological advancement was tin.
The tin price then went up to US$50,000 per tonne or thereabouts, and MIT appeared vindicated.
That tin has subsequently fallen back quite substantially to its current levels of around US$25,000 is perhaps a good illustration of the need for serious caution in the sphere of commodities investing, but even so, the bull case that MIT laid out does remain in place.
For one thing, when tin rocketed up to those bonanza levels, it wasn’t the only metal to do so. It had been rising strongly during the COVID crisis, in common with many others, and then hit a peak during the market panic that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Then, though, as supply chain disruption rapidly undermined the post-COVID exuberance that everyone had been expecting, and as China continued with its authoritarian stop-start economic policies, the price dropped away.
It's still some way higher than where it was when MIT made its prediction, having enjoyed a second run-up towards the end of last year, a run-up which was in turn followed by a subsequent correction.
Standout performers
During these times of yo-yo-ing prices, of course, miners with fixed cost bases have been watching margins widen and contract. But on the whole, for those who’ve been able to keep the pressures of inflation to a minimum, like Andrada or Alphamin, times have been good.
Shares in Alphamin, which is Toronto-listed and which claims 3% of global tin production from its operations in the Congo have more than doubled over the past two years.
And shares in Andrada, which until recently was known as AfriTin, have done almost as well – nearly doubling since 2021, as tin production from its Uis mine in Namibia has begun to get underway in earnest.
Revitalised in Britain
Other companies with less well-advanced operations have also found favour with investors. Broker SP Angel has been recommending Cornish Metals to investors in recent market updates, as the company continues in its efforts to revitalise Britain’s once-proud tin mining industry.
Cornish Metals recently raised a sizeable sum to de-water the famous South Crofty mine and has also been turning up attractive grades from the southern portion of the landholding there.
“Discovering a new high-grade zone of tin mineralisation in the middle of a historic mining district is a tremendous outcome, and again demonstrates the exploration potential of the region,” Cornish Metals chief Richard Williams said at the time.
Certainly, the British Government would be only too delighted if it could establish significant new production of what looks to be becoming an increasingly strategic metal.
A privately-held company, Cornish Tin, is also making good progress in working up both old and new ground, while all around the hunt for lithium is creating the sense of an impending local renaissance in mining.
Will it happen?
It remains to be seen, of course. But if the MIT analysis proves right in the longer term, and the tin price begins to move upwards once again, then the odds will be much more in favour.
Efforts elsewhere
Meanwhile, around the world, other junior mining companies continue to plug away in familiar and less familiar jurisdictions.
There are a number of ASX-listed companies focused on tin, including Elementos Ltd (ASX:ELT, OTC:ELTLF), AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX:AVZ), Stellar Resources Ltd (ASX:SRZ) and Venture Minerals Limited (ASX:VMS, OTC:VTMLF).
Elementos in Spain
Elementos Ltd (ASX:ELT, OTC:ELTLF) is focusing on increasing the 75,833.6 tonnes resource base at its flagship Oropesa Tin Project in Andalucia, Spain.
Last month the company lifted the resource to 19,602,383 tonnes at 0.39% tin with 18,531,683 tonnes in the measured and indicated categories.
READ: Elementos fields polymetallic hits outside mineral resource at Oropesa Tin Project in Spain
Since then, further strong results have been returned from outside the resource but with zinc and copper values as well, including 8.8 metres at 0.23% tin, 1.65% zinc and 1.21% copper from 99 metres.
Managing director Joe David said the company continued to gain confidence in Oropesa's exploration potential, with further evidence of mineralisation extending northwest of the project’s resource.
“The main Oropesa deposit is not a semi-massive or massive sulphide in nature, so this new polymetallic mineralisation could be due to an alternative hydrothermal event which returned elevated zinc and copper grades but with notably lower tin grades in comparison to the main deposit.
Tasmania as well
Elementos also has the Cleveland Tin Project in Tasmania where tin, copper, tungsten and now fluorite have been returned in drilling programs.
David said: “The confirmation of two broad zones of significant fluorite mineralisation intersected at our Cleveland Tin Project is additional confirmation that we sit on a very special asset here in Tasmania.
“The historical tin mine is one which is clearly highly mineralised and just starting to show its potential as a source of other critical minerals.
“While the project has mineral resource estimates published for tin, copper and tungsten; the potential for additional minerals such as fluorite, to add to the mineral suite for the project, is just beginning to be assessed and understood.
“The company will continue to progress its understanding of the fluorite mineralisation event through further in our field and laboratory programs, in addition to desktop reviews of historical papers and mining reports from previous mining operations."
AVZ has tin in DRC
AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX:AVZ) (AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX:AVZ)) continues to progress its Manono Lithium and Tin Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
READ: AVZ Minerals delivers more strong results from resource extension drilling at Manono
Strong results continue to be received from mineral resource extension drilling at the Manono Project, including from the Roche Dure Northeast Extension.
The results, including 113.33 metres at 1.79% lithium (Li2O) and 860ppm tin which includes 36 metres at 2.06% Li2O and 887ppm tin, have seen AVZ expand its drilling program from 45 holes.
"Our third lot of four holes drilled at Roche Dure, continue to demonstrate solid grade continuity both along strike and down dip from the current open pit design,” AVZ’s managing director Nigel Ferguson says.
“Drill hole MO22DD010, however, demonstrates late-stage metasomatic alteration of the pegmatite which is found in some places. 48 holes have now been completed with 33 holes sampled and dispatched to the laboratory in Perth.
"Additionally, eight holes have been geotechnically logged and selected core samples sent for specialist laboratory tests to allow for a new mine design to be created once the updated JORC 2012-compliant mineral resource estimate is completed.
“The objectives of this current round of drilling are to shore up future mineable reserves based on a likely upgrade of resource tonnes generated from this current round of drilling."
Tasmania is an Australian hotspot for tin, and as well as Elementos, Stellar Resources Ltd (ASX:SRZ) and Venture Minerals are among the companies active in the island state.
Stellar’s Heemskirk
Stellar Resources Ltd’s flagship is the Heemskirk Tin Project in western Tasmania which hosts a mineral resource estimate of 7.6 million tonnes at 1.1% tin for 81,976 tonnes of contained tin.
Current efforts are primarily focused on the Severn deposit where strong recent results seem set to boost the resource of 4.9 million tonnes at 1.0% tin for 46,764 tonnes of contained tin.
READ: Stellar Resources fields “robust” tin results from drill campaign at the Heemskirk Tin Project’s Severn prospect
Drilling aimed at growing the indicated resource in the wide high-grade area of the project returned:
- 42.9 metres at 0.77% tin from 490.1 metres, including 15.9 metres at 1.27% from 496 metres; and
- 39.4 metres at 0.46% tin from 500.3 metres, including 5.8 metres at 0.86% from 500.3 metres, and 4.7 metres at 0.83% from 513 metres.
“The Phase 2B drill program is progressing well, with all results expected to be incorporated into the mid-2023 MRE update.”
Venture at Mount Lindsay
Venture Minerals Limited (ASX:VMS, OTC:VTMLF) has the Mount Lindsay Tin-Tungsten Project in Tasmania’s northwest which has been classified by the Australian Government as a Critical Minerals Project.
Mount Lindsay is already one of the largest undeveloped tin projects in the world, containing in excess of 80,000 tonnes of tin metal, and Venture aims to grow this through further exploration.
READ: Venture Minerals starts drilling at Mount Lindsay's high-priority Cruncher REE-tin target
This includes drilling at a new, high-priority rare earth element (REE)-tin target called Cruncher, which is 1.3 kilometres west of the company’s shallow clay-hosted Reward REE discovery.
The Reward discovery sits in the hanging wall of the tin zones of Reward deposit, which has an existing resource of 500,000 tonnes at 0.9% tin.
The new Cruncher target consists of a 1,200-metre-long soil anomaly defined mainly by two REEs – lanthanum and cerium - sitting within a broader boron soil anomaly, both of which are still open to the north.
These elements are supported by elevated values of two other REEs - praseodymium and neodymium, which are two of the four key REEs required to make high-strength permanent magnets critical to EV and wind turbine efficiency.
The REE soil anomaly sits within a broader boron soil anomaly, both of which are still open to the north.
Known tin-tungsten-magnetite skarns in the adjacent Livingstone-Reward area are characterised by broad boron in soil haloes, making boron a strong indicator for tin in skarn mineralisation.
Other plays
Elsewhere, Auxico Resources Inc continues to operate its Colombian tin trading business and Tincorp Metals has just bought some assets in Bolivia.
It’s not like gold or copper, where the juniors are ten-a-penny. But does that mean the upside is any less?
Probably not. It just means that doing the right research and having the right people become more important than ever.