Companies are responding to our invitation to send in news on their own plans for new tin supply. In the last week we have heard about two projects in Namibia and Australia from readers of Tin in the News.
Tin Tan Mining, based in Uis, Namibia is planning to start up a pilot plant to treat tailings from old mine workings in the next two months. The 85,000 tonne dump grades 0.19% tin and 400 ppm tantalum. Subsequently the company is looking at hard-rock mining of a 6 million tonne resource grading 0.5% tin and 650 ppm tantalum, with processing by electro-winning/solvent extraction. The project is not connected with the old Uis mine formerly operated by the South African steel company Iscor (now part of the ArcelorMittal group), which was closed in 1991. Since last year another company, Prokomex, has had an agreement with the local licence holders, Small Miners of Uis (a semi-government association), to revive this operation.
In Western Australia Lithex Resources has been carrying out auger drilling at its Moolyella project in the Pilbara region in the north of the state. Tenements controlled by Lithex include alluvial, elluvial and hard rock deposits and tailings from historical small-scale mining from the 1890s to the mid-1980s. Resource estimates were made by Endevour Resources based on exploration carried out from 1965 to 1985, and Lithex will bring these up to JORC-compliant standards in the near future.
