Newly established on AIM, AfriTin Mining is a mining company with a portfolio of near production tin assets in Namibia (Uis project) and South Africa (Mokopane Tin). Its vision “ is to become a fully-fledged, conflict-free tin producer and mining company with smelting capabilites in the next two to five years, satisfying the growing industrial demand for tin.”
The Uis tin project consists of three project areas in the Erongo region of Namibia, all with historical production. The subject of the project is a pegmatite hosted tin deposit, one of the largest open pittable deposits of its kind.
Uis was discovered in 1911 and was developed by Iscor of South Africa as the largest hard-rock tin mine in the world. Production started in the 1950s and ended in 1990 as a result of depressed tin prices.
Today’s project areas are fully permitted and offer near-term production with low stripping ratios.
Uis has a non-JORC compliant resource of 73 Mt at 0.136% Sn with an additional 2.7 Mt at 0.015% Ta2O5.
ITRI reports has AfriTin “plans to move ahead with the expansion of a pilot plant at its Uis tin project, after successfully raising £4.5 million in equity and convertible loan notes earlier this year.
AfriTin formed via a demerger from Bushveld Minerals as a spin-off of the company’s two main tin assets, the Uis tin project and the Mokopane tin project in South Africa. The company is currently focussed on development at Uis while also seeking consolidation opportunities for other African tin assets.
The company has plans to use the recently raised funds to undertake a pilot plant campaign in 2018 producing 10 t/month of tin concentrate and up to 65 t/month if the plant is upgraded. During this time a DFS is planned with an ultimate aim of developing an open pit mining and processing operation producing some 3,000 t/y of tin-in-concentrate by Q2 2020.
The tin grades at Uis are low but low stripping ratios and simple gravity separation which should help the economics.
ITRI View: “The timeline to production proposed by AfriTin is ambitious. Detailed work on upgrading the resources at Uis to compliant status and assessing the detailed economics of the operation will need to be completed and appraised before the long-term prospects for this project are clear. However, the successful fundraising and planned pilot plant campaign and DFS is a positive sign that significant active development work will be taking place at Uis in the near-term.”