Cornish Metals (AIM: TIN) is a mineral exploration and development company that is working towards re-opening its wholly owned and permitted South Crofty underground tin mine located in Cornwall, UK. In addition, the Company holds 15,000 ha in exploration licences across the county with potential for discovery of tin, copper, lithium, tungsten, zinc and silver mineralisation.
South Crofty
The Company’s focus is to advance South Crofty towards a final investment decision, and ultimately production. The Company benefits from South Crofty’s existing mine infrastructure preserved for future mining activities, including five shafts and a decline. South Crofty has an active mine permit valid to 2071, planning permission to construct a new processing plant and an environmental permit to dewater the mine.
It is increasingly clear that domestic supply of the metals critical to the energy transition is becoming a dominant theme globally. Tin is essential to all things electronic, Cornwall is a “world class” tin belt, and South Crofty is the jewel in the crown of Cornish tin mining.
A processing facility at South Crofty also opens up the potential to serve as a central hub to other projects within reasonable transport distance, including projects like United Downs. Downstream opportunities such as smelting and refining prospects will also be assessed as the South Crofty project advances.
Favourable Tin Market Conditions
Tin is fundamental to growth in the technology sector and the transition to a low carbon economy and is used in key fast growing technological applications including batteries, robotics, solar power, 5G and cloud storage.
Independent market analysts are predicting a growing deficit of supply for the tin market over the medium-term as the growth in renewable energy, shift to electric vehicles, roll-out of 5G networks and growth in the internet of things continues. The demand for responsibly sourced / mined metals that are important to the energy transition and the need for security of supply will only grow in the near to medium-term.
There is no primary tin production in Europe or North America and security of a supply is a key issue with tin being listed as a critical mineral by the UK, US, and Canadian governments. Compounding the problem is the lack of investment into exploration, discovery and development of new tin deposits as well as increasing scrutiny over supply chains and requirements for “clean tin” i.e. low environmental impact, non-exploitation of child labour and not funding conflict. Cornish Metals is in a position to potentially deliver tin to meet some of the UK’s domestic needs.