This is an annual phenomenon. While many metal fabricators take downtime over the holiday period, most smelters keep operating, leading to a jump in visible inventory.

Copper has experienced the sharpest seasonal stocks build this year, leaving exchange inventory at the highest levels since 2020.

The rise in ShFE zinc inventories has closely matched last year’s pattern, while aluminum has seen a highly muted rebuild by historical standards.

Nickel stocks were increasing before the holiday break and are now at four-year highs. Those of tin are the highest since ShFE launched its tin contract in 2015.

Copper surge

ShFE copper stocks have mushroomed from just 30,905 metric tons at the end of December to 285,090 tons.

The scale of this year’s seasonal surge has been the strongest since 2020, when registered inventory peaked at 380,085 tons. The New Year holiday period that year coincided with the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns and the resulting slump in Chinese manufacturing activity.

This year the jump in exchange stocks likely reflects the combination of fast domestic production growth and higher imports.

The country’s output of refined copper rose by 9.0% year-on-year in January-February, equivalent to an extra 159,000 tons, according to local data provider Shanghai Metal Market. Imports rose by 2.6% over the same period.

Stocks registered with Shanghai’s International Energy Exchange have also jumped from 9,760 tons at the end of last year to a current 40,511 tons. However, this year’s mid-March peak of 45,298 tons fell short of last year’s peak of 82,575 tons.

Muted rise in aluminum stocks

ShFE stocks of aluminum fell to 199,757 tons this week from last week’s year-to-date high of 206,417 tons.

If that turns out to be this year’s seasonal peak, it means the rebuild has been extremely muted relative to the last four years.

Stocks are up by just 100,728 tons on the start of January. By this time last year they had risen by 229,000 tons. The seasonal effect was even stronger over the 2020-2022 period.

Visible inventory remains remarkably low after last year’s high imports of over 1.5 million tons and the bullish optics reinforce the narrative of a tight domestic market.

Seasonal norm for zinc and lead

Exchange stocks of zinc in Shanghai crept a little higher this week to 121,873 tons and are now up by 100,658 tons on the start of January.

This is very close to last year’s seasonal build of 103,441 tons and to that seen in 2021.

Shanghai lead stocks stand at 53,631 tons and are up by just 747 tons since the start of 2024, which is comparable to the 333-ton rise seen over the first three months of last year.

Lead is less exposed to the new year holiday effect, having its own seasonality in the form of car battery kill rates over the northern hemisphere winter months.

China is also exporting ever more refined lead. Shipments rose by 62% year-on-year to 188,000 tons in 2023, the highest annual volume since 2007.

The steady outbound flow has served to keep Shanghai inventory below the 100,000-ton level for the last two years.

Nickel stocks at four-year high

Shanghai nickel stocks dwindled to just 560 tons in May last year, reflecting a shift in domestic production from the refined nickel that trades on the ShFE to nickel sulphate used in electric vehicle batteries.

The dynamic has changed dramatically over the last year. A new generation of Chinese nickel refineries has started up to capitalise on the burgeoning import flow of Indonesian raw materials.

ShFE stocks have grown to 20,713 tons, the highest tally since December 2020. The build has been mirrored on the London market, where the London Metal Exchange (LME) has been fast-tracking Chinese companies wanting to list their brands. LME stocks have risen by 21% so far this year.

Tin stocks hit record high

Global exchange stocks of tin, by contrast, are showing divergent trends.

Those in London have fallen by a third this year to below 5,000 tons as supply is constrained by export delays in Indonesia.

Shanghai tin stocks have been rising steadily since the start of December and now total 12,021 tons, which is the highest inventory in the contract’s nine years of trading history.

The country has been stocking up on refined tin in recent months, imports hitting a record high of 33,470 tons last year.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by David Evans)

Graphic: Congo overtakes Peru on copper output, still behind on exports

The most-traded May nickel contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) closed day-time trade 2% lower to a nearly two-week low at 136,450 yuan ($18,953.23) per metric ton.

The most-traded April tin contract fell 2.6% to 224,430 yuan per ton, after dropping as much as 3% – the biggest loss in three months – earlier in the session.

Prices of the metals in London fell on Tuesday after a senior Indonesian mining ministry official said the country had issued production quotas of 152.62 million tons of nickel ore and 44,481.63 tons of tin so far this year, and was working to accelerate the approval process.

The delayed issuance had sparked fears of supply tightness, supporting prices over the past few months.

“Signs of faster approval and better supply offset recently improved demand supported by better stainless steel production,” Hongyuan Futures analysts noted.

Nickel, a key metal for stainless steel and battery production, is plagued by a global supply glut. An executive at Vale said on Tuesday the market would swing to a deficit by 2028.

Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange rebounded 0.4% to $17,465 per ton by 0821 GMT, while LME tin was down 0.3% at $27,365 per ton.

Prices of the circuit-board solder metal on the London Metal Exchange dropped 3.1% to $27,805 a ton at 0850 GMT following the news, on track for the first decline in five sessions.

Earlier this week, tin prices surged to their highest in seven months this week, partly due to disruption of Indonesian exports amid delays in approvals of mining companies’ annual work plans, known locally as RKAB.

The government has been working through the backlog and issued more output quotas, but around 500 production proposals for various minerals are still under review, a mining official said on Tuesday.

“While the resumption of production is welcome to international markets, further extended licensing delays indicate that exports may remain suppressed for some time,” International Tin Association (ITA) analyst Tom Langston said.

“In China, a feedstock squeeze due to the cessation of tin mining in Myanmar’s Wa State since Aug. 1, 2023 adds increased uncertainty when combined with the loss of Indonesian supply which accounted for 73% of China’s refined tin imports in 2023,” said Langston.

He said Indonesian firms PT Timah and PT Mitra Stania Prima received their export licenses and that trading resumed on the Jakarta Futures Exchange on March 5.

PT Timah exported around 1,600 tons of refined tin in early March, Abdullah said on Monday. It produced 15,300 tons last year, an annual drop of 23%, ITA data showed.

PT Timah does not have to fulfill the 30,000-ton volume in its export permit.

Indonesia produced 74,400 tons of refined tin last year, about a fifth of global output, and exported 57,317 tons, data from the World Bureau of Metal Statistics showed.

(By Bernadette Christina and Mai Nguyen; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Varun H K)

Ken Armstrong, a non-executive director, will step in as Interim CEO, and Patrick Anderson, chairman of the board, will serve as executive chairman during the transition and search for a permanent CEO.

Armstrong was CEO of the company’s predecessor, Strongbow Exploration, until 2015. He also holds the position of president and CEO at North Arrow Minerals (TSXV: NAR).

Earlier this month, Cornish announced it is accelerating work to reopen a past-producing tin mine at its South Crofty project in southwest England.

The Vancouver-based mine developer said it will expedite plans to refurbish the New Cook’s Kitchen shaft at South Crofty after an assessment revealed the deteriorating condition of its timbers, necessitating immediate action.

The company expects the process of dewatering the mine to be completed by the third quarter of 2025.

South Crofty could produce up to 5,000 tonnes of tin annually, with initial production projected for 2026.

Shares of Cornish Metals rose 3.2% by 11:42 p.m. EDT. The miner has a market capitalization of C$85.6 million ($63.2 million).

Supply in both markets is dominated by Indonesia, where production and exports are being affected by delays in approving annual work permits.

This is a relatively new phenomenon for nickel. Indonesian production has exploded over the last few years to the point the country now accounts for more than half of global supply.

Tin has been here before. Indonesia has long been the world’s largest exporter and the flow of metal to world markets has been interrupted several times in the past when the government tightened production and export rules.

Tin’s misfortune, however, is that its supply chain is not just beholden to Indonesia’s resource nationalism but also to that of the Wa State in Myanmar.

Double trouble

Indonesian exported 78,000 metric tons of refined tin last year, equivalent to around a fifth of global demand.

Exports so far this year have slumped to just 55.4 tons, compared with 4,700 tons in January-February 2023.

The last time shipments ground to a complete halt was in August 2015, when the authorities introduced “clean and clear” rules on exports to enforce environmental standards.

This time it’s a change to the annual permitting system. It’s possible that tin may be coming under special scrutiny due to an unfolding illegal mining scandal.

The government has also made no secret of its intention to limit exports as a lever to push its tin sector further downstream.

It doesn’t seem to have worked out how to replicate its nickel strategy in the tin market yet. But the threat to the rest of the world’s tin supply is not going away.

Neither is that posed by the Wa State, the semi-autonomous region of Myanmar which controls the Man Maw mine, one of the world’s largest tin resources.

All mining was suspended in August last year to allow for an audit of reserves. The suspension has been partly lifted, opens new tab for some smaller operators, although they will pay more in export tax, according to the International Tin Association (ITA).

However, operations at Man Maw have yet to resume. The ITA suggests the delay may reflect a policy re-think around the need to replenish the Wa government’s strategic stockpile.

Amid the continuing uncertainty, one thing is clear. The ruling United Wa State Army aims to exert tighter control over the jewel in its mineral crown.

Myanmar and Indonesia are combining to squeeze global tin supply driven by the same resource nationalist impulse.

Surplus and stocks rebuild

The tin market can likely absorb the double hit over the short term.

The ITA estimates that global supply exceeded usage by 9,700 tons last year, attesting to the slump in demand from the electronics sector, where tin is used as circuit-board soldering.

Stocks registered with the LME and the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) more than doubled to 15,400 tons over the course of 2023.

Those on the LME have recently been sliding as the halt to Indonesian shipments drags on. Headline inventory has fallen by 31% to 5,300 tons since the start of January.

Shanghai stocks, by contrast, have continued growing over the Chinese New Year holiday period and at a current 11,072 tons are the highest they have been since ShFE launched its tin contract in 2015.

The flow of raw material from the Man Maw mine in Myanmar to Chinese smelters has dropped but not as much as feared after the authorities allowed the processing of surface stocks. Many Chinese operators also built up stocks of concentrate ahead of the August suspension.

China’s production of refined tin grew by 1.8% year-on-year to 169,000 tons, according to local data provider Shanghai Metal Market.

Tin users are lucky that the current supply disruption has come after a year of low demand and restocking of both raw material and metal.

Future fragility

The question worrying the tin market is how long it will be before normal supply service is resumed in both Myanmar and Indonesia.

LME three-month tin hit a seven-month high of $27,810 per ton on Friday and, currently trading around $27,460 per ton, is now up by 9.0% on the start of the year.

Even assuming a speedy resumption of Indonesian exports and mining in Myanmar, tin supply over the next few months looks challenging.

The longer-term threat is of future supply disruption as resource nationalism drives both governments further down the road of export controls.

Tin’s use as a circuit-board solder makes it a critical mineral both for the current generation of electronics and the coming internet of things.

Yet it is one with an incredibly fragile supply chain, beholden to the politics of Indonesia and the United Wa State Army.

This year’s supply squeeze may be just a taster of things to come for tin.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Louise Heavens)

The approval process for the quotas, known locally as RKAB, has been delayed this year, raising concerns from nickel smelters who are facing depleting ore stock.

Indonesia, a major producer of minerals such as nickel, tin, and copper, requires all mining companies to secure RKAB approvals periodically before they are allowed to conduct mining activities.

“RKAB approvals for minerals are still on progress and the plan is to complete them by the end of March,” said Irwandy Arif, special staff to the energy and mineral resources minister.

A total of 723 mineral mining companies applied for quota approvals, Irwandy said.

He did not provide the tonnage for the approved RKAB, nor the breakdown of each of the minerals. But he said the ministry has completed approvals for coal miners.

However, Indonesia Mining Association Executive Director Djoko Widajatno estimated that around 259 million wet metric tons of production quota for nickel have been approved, he said in a text message on Tuesday.

Last week, a director at the ministry said approvals have been issued for 145 million metric tons of nickel ore production this year, with approvals for more underway as authorities focused on processing requests for nickel and tin.

(By Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Martin Petty and Christian Schmollinger)

The Canadian explorer and developer said it will bring forward plans to refurbish  New Cook’s Kitchen (NCK) shaft at South Crofty after an assessment of the tunnel conditions revealed the deteriorating condition of its timbers, requiring immediate action. 

“This is a key milestone for the project,” chief executive officer Richard Williams said in a statement, adding that rephasing shaft refurbishment would significantly improve the functionality of NCK shaft.

Williams also said the strategic move would enable larger equipment to access the mine at an earlier stage in its re-development as the company re-gains access to the underground mine section.

The Vancouver-based company, formerly known as Strongbow Explorations, said the process of dewatering the mine is expected to be done by the third quarter of 2025.

Cornish has said the project will have a positive impact on water quality in the Red river, as it presently receives untreated water from the mine as a legacy of past mining operations.

Water discharged from South Crofty will serve a dual purpose, the company said, as it will power a hydro-turbine, generating around 15% of the energy required by the water treatment plant.

The firm’s ultimate goal is to secure a leading place in the development of an industry for the battery metal in the UK.

Cornish said the ongoing feasibility study is on track to be completed in the first half of this year, with a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) expected some time between April and the end of June. 

The PEA will play a crucial role in guiding the completion of the Feasibility Study and providing updated funding estimates for achieving first tin production, Williams said.

There is currently no primary mine production of tin in Europe or North America and the US has included the metal in a list of minerals considered critical to the country’s economic and national security.

South Crofty could generate up to 5,000 tonnes of tin a year, with first production expected in 2026. The company said the mine will create up to 270 direct jobs and support a further 750 in the region, one of the UK’s most underprivileged.

The ministry sofarhas issued approvals for quotas, known by the Indonesian acronym RKAB, for 145 million metric tons of nickel ore and 14 million tons of bauxite, said Tri Winarno, the ministry’s director of mineral business development, adding that the focus is currently on RKAB approvals for nickel and tin mining.

Indonesia this year extended the validity of RKAB to three years from one year to reduce the frequency that companies needed to apply for the quotas, but Tri specified that the volumes approved so far are only for 2024.

“This (volume) is for this year. We continue to accelerate the approval process,” he said.

Tri did not specify how many companies have acquired the RKAB approvals.

Miners and smelting companies have been concerned by delays in the approvals, without which they cannot conduct mining activities.

In January, exports of Indonesia’s tin products dropped 99% because of the delay.

Tri said Indonesia’s largest tin miner, state-controlled PT Timah, has been granted its mining quotas, as well as a number of private tin companies.

(By Bernadette Christina Munthe and Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Martin Petty and Christian Schmollinger)

Wa state, an autonomous area in Myanmar controlled by an armed ethnic group, has placed a tax in kind of 30% on all tin concentrate exports from Feb. 7, according to a notice from its economic planning committee viewed by Bloomberg. Previously, only better quality concentrate was subject to the tax, while poorer grades were charged less onerous cash duties, researcher Mysteel Global said.

Myanmar is the world’s third largest producer of tin ore, and the expanded levies mean industries including food processing and semiconductors will face higher costs. Areas controlled by the United State Wa Army accounted for around a third of China’s supply of the metal in 2022, according to the International Tin Association.

It’s the latest in a series of restrictions to affect tin, the only one of six major metals on the London Metal Exchange to have risen this year. Indonesia, which vies with China as the world’s biggest miner of tin, has already banned ore exports as part of the government’s campaign to develop processing at home. Mining protests in Peru last year also curbed availability.

Resource nationalism and concerns over environmental degradation are increasingly imposing constraints on the flow of metals across the world. The United Wa State Army halted tin mining last year to conserve deposits and reduce pollution and accidents, leaving the processors that turn ore into concentrate to run down their stockpiles.

Then there are Beijing’s own efforts to shut down cyber-scam operations on its border, which have threatened to delay the resumption of mining in Myanmar.

As inventories in the country deplete, exports to China could see a bigger drop starting next month, said Mysteel analyst Ding Wenqiang. And while global supplies of the refined metal remain ample, stockpiles monitored by the LME began dropping in December.

LME tin has risen over 3% this year and the new tariff regime in Myanmar is supporting prices, Shanghai Metals Market said in a note.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, the scientists explain that the key to the device is a “microchiplet” made of diamond in which some of the diamond’s carbon atoms are replaced with atoms of tin. The team’s experiments indicate that the device, consisting of waveguides for the light to carry the quantum information, solves a paradox that has stymied the arrival of large, scalable quantum networks.

Quantum information in the form of quantum bits, or qubits, is easily disrupted by environmental noise, like magnetic fields, that destroys the information. So on one hand, it’s desirable to have qubits that don’t interact strongly with the environment. On the other hand, however, those qubits need to strongly interact with the light, or photons, key to carrying the information over distances.

The MIT and Cambridge researchers allow both by co-integrating two different kinds of qubits that work in tandem to save and transmit information. Further, the team reports high efficiencies in the transfer of that information.

“This is a critical step as it demonstrates the feasibility of integrating electronic and nuclear qubits in a microchiplet. This integration addresses the need to preserve quantum information over long distances while maintaining strong interaction with photons,” Dirk Englund, who led the research at MIT, said in a media statement. “This was possible through the combination of the strengths of the University of Cambridge and MIT teams.”

Working at the quantum scale

A computer bit can be thought of as anything with two different physical states, such as “on” and “off,” to represent zero and one. In the strange ultra-small world of quantum mechanics, a qubit “has the extra property that instead of being in just one of these two states, it can be in a superposition of the two states. So it can be in both of those states at the same time,” Jesús Arjona Martínez, co-author of the study, said.

Multiple qubits that are entangled, or correlated with each other, can share much more information than the bits associated with conventional computing. Hence the potential power of quantum computers.

Englund and his team explained that there are many kinds of qubits, but two common types are based on spin, or the rotation of an electron or a nucleus (left to right, or right to left). The new device involves both electronic and nuclear qubits.

A spinning electron, or electronic qubit, is very good at interacting with the environment, while the spinning nucleus of an atom, or nuclear qubit, is not. 

“We’ve combined a qubit that is well known for interacting easily with light with a qubit that is well known for being very isolated, and thus preserving information for a long time. By combining these two, we think we can get the best of both worlds,” Arjona Martínez said.

Like the solar system

The way it works is that the electron [electronic qubit] whizzing along in the diamond can get stuck at the tin defect and this electronic qubit can then transfer its information to the spinning tin nucleus, the nuclear qubit.

“The analogy I like to use is the solar system,” Isaac Harris, co-author of the paper, said. “You have the sun in the middle, that’s the tin nucleus, and then you have the earth going around it, and that’s the electron. We can choose to store the information in the direction of the earth’s rotation, that’s our electronic qubit. Or we can store the information in the direction of the sun, which rotates around its own axis. That’s the nuclear qubit.”

In general, then, light carries information through an optical fibre to the new device, which includes a stack of several tiny diamond waveguides that are each about 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. Several devices could then act as the nodes that control the flow of information in the quantum internet.

The work described in this study involved experiments with one device. 

“Eventually, however, there could be hundreds or thousands of these on a microchip,” Arjona Martínez said.

Harris noted that his theoretical work had predicted a strong interaction between the tin nucleus and the incoming electronic qubit. “It was ten times larger than we expected it to be, so I thought the calculation was probably wrong. Then the Cambridge team came along and measured it, and it was neat to see that the prediction was confirmed by the experiment.”

China consumes more than half the world’s metals and an even greater proportion of iron ore and battery raw materials – and gloom about the country’s economic prospects amid a property and stock market crisis have only added to bearish mining sentiment. 

In a new trading desk note Marcus Garvey, head of Macquarie commodities strategy based in Singapore, and a team of analysts have identified the first green shoots for the sector (and 34 charts to back it up):   

“January’s full set of PMIs (World manufacturing new orders up 1.2pp to 49.8) looks like a potential turning point for the global industrial cycle, with bullish implications for industrial commodities demand.”

Expectations of a smaller reduction in US interest rates this year than previously anticipated have supported the dollar and put metal prices under pressure which usually move in the opposite direction. 

Nevertheless, says Macquarie: “Commodity prices have a far more consistent relationship with global growth than with FX.”

The investment bank also points to US goods demand which it says “increasingly looks to be reaccelerating,” and from a higher base. Macquarie also sees the potential of a developed market manufacturing recovery and a restocking cycle in Europe.”

And while China has so far held off on broad based economic stimulus, fixed asset investment in infrastructure, led by renewables, and certain sectors including autos (particularly electric cars) have shown notable strength.

“Ultimately, if commodity prices are lifted by a pick-up in global industrial production, the implications for goods inflation may become self-inhibiting, by reducing the scope for further central bank easing. 

“But that is an ex-post problem, not an ex-ante one, suggesting to us that dips should now be bought. 

“Selectively at least, in those markets where fundamentals are already relatively tight or have the potential to tighten quickly. Especially if positioning gets short.”

Earlier, the company reported results from the first six drill holes of the ongoing 9,000-metre Carn Brea drill program.

All six drill holes intersected the Wide Formation lode structure, which is characterized by strong tourmaline alteration and variable tin mineralization, similar to all historically mined tin-bearing structures in the South Crofty area.

This structure has been confirmed over a strike length of at least 1.6 kilometres, a downdip extent of at least 525 metres, with thicknesses ranging from 1.8 to 4.8 metres, and remains open.

Highlighted Wide Formation drill intercepts include 1.21 metres grading 0.87% tin and 1.90 metres grading 0.83% tin. Drilling at the newly identified Great Flat lode splay also returned 3.38 metres grading 1.01% tin and 1.00 metre grading 1.56% tin.

Additional notable intercepts include 0.30 metre grading 7.48% tin and 3.09 metres grading 1.21% tin between the two structures.

There is currently no primary mine production of tin in Europe or North America, and the US has included the metal in a list of minerals considered critical to the country’s economic and national security.

South Crofty could generate up to 5,000 tonnes of tin a year, with first production expected in 2026. The company said the mine will create up to 270 direct jobs and support a further 750 in the region, one of the UK’s most underprivileged.

Shares of Cornish Metals rose 9.3% by 2:10 p.m. EDT. The company has a market capitalization of C$91 million ($67 million).

Alphamin currently produces about 4% of the world’s tin from its high-grade Mpama North mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is also developing the nearby Mpama South expansion project, which is expected to increase annual tin production by 60% once its up and running.

In its results release, Alphamin said the initial development of Mpama South has already been completed on time. The underground development should ensure sufficient developed mineral resources to ensure adequate stockpiles ahead of the processing plant’s commissioning, which will then allow for a rapid ramp-up of tin production.

The processing plant mechanical erection and installation is essentially complete with the main outstanding work relating to completion of the installation of electrical cabling, the installation of instrumentation and the commissioning of the plant, the company said.

As previously reported, logistical delays due to poor inbound road conditions have deferred the commencement of processing to the end of March 2024. The miner was initially aiming to bring Mpama South into production during 2023.

The Mpama South capital expenditure cost to steady state production is now expected to exceed the $116 million budget by approximately 10% primarily as a result of the aforementioned delays as well as minor scope changes.

To gain access to additional funds, Alphamin has secured a four-year extension to its current offtake agreement with the Gerald Group on the basis of an approximate 60% reduction in tin marketing costs and an up to $50 million tin prepayment arrangement. The tin prepayment arrangement is effective immediately.

On the basis of incremental tin production from the Mpama South plant from April onwards, Alphamin said it expects contained tin production of between 17,000 and 18,000 tonnes for this year.

Alphamin’s stock was up by 3.4% to C$0.91 a share as of noon ET in Toronto, giving it a market capitalization of C$1.1 billion ($820m). The shares traded within a range of C$0.68 to C$1.10 over the past 52 weeks.

Tin is used in circuit-board soldering for products like mobile phones and in electric cars and also in the manufacture of solar panels. Solder currently accounts for about half of global tin consumption.

Sluggish demand particularly from the semiconductor industry pushed the market into surplus for the past two years. This was despite a ban imposed last August on tin mining in Myanmar’s Wa region, which exports to China, the top producer of refined tin and also the biggest consumer.

The Wa state authorized a partial resumption of mining from January 3 “with the notable exception of the Man Maw mine area, which accounts for almost all tin production in the autonomous region”, according to the International Tin Association.

Tin prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) have dropped 20% to around $26,500 a metric ton, since hitting a six-month high at $32,680 in January last year.

“The market may ease in 2024, especially if more supply comes through from Myanmar,” said Bank of America strategist Danica Averion.

“Against near-term headwinds, fundamentals look robust longer term on solar and electric vehicles.”

Bank of America estimates the tin market surplus at 5,800 tons last year and global consumption at 360,400 tons.

Myanmar accounted for 72% of China’s total imports of tin ores and concentrates last year, amounting to more than 180,000 tons, compared with a number above 187,000 tons or nearly 77% in 2022, according to Trade Data Monitor (TDM).

Short-term support for tin prices could come from Indonesia, the world’s second largest producer of refined tin after China.

“Over the last few years, we have seen Indonesian tin exports slump in the early months of the year due to export licence renewals,” Citi analysts said in a December note.

Longer term, investment in and sales of electric vehicles and solar panels will see tin consumption pick up pace.

“Tin demand from the green sector could more than double by 2030, potentially topping 70,000 tons per annum equivalent to a fifth of current consumption,” Averion said.

“This suggests that fundamentals are set to remain strong and the focus will be on the supply side and the extent to which producers will be able to meet this additional demand.”

(By Pratima Desai; Editing by Jane Merriman)

The Wa State, the largest of the country’s ethnic groups, ordered the suspension of all mining and processing operations in the autonomous region at the start of August for an extensive audit.

That ban has been lifted with effect from Jan. 4 for most mining. The major exception is the Man Maw mine, which accounts for almost all tin production in a region that is the world’s third largest producer and the dominant supplier to China’s smelters.

The impact of the suspension has so far been muted. It was well flagged, allowing Chinese players to stock up on ore and metal, and the loss of supply coincided with a downturn in global demand.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month tin price remains locked in a $23,000-25,000 per metric ton range, last trading at $24,220.

However, with demand from the all-important soldering sector showing signs of picking up, the market needs Man Maw back up and running sooner rather than later.

Slow progress

The Wa State leadership has allowed Man Maw operators to process surface stocks of tin ore since September, according to the International Tin Association (ITA), which has been monitoring developments in this opaque part of the global supply chain.

The Wa State Mineral Industry Administration held a meeting with Man Maw operators on Dec. 4, resulting in the submission of a mine management proposal to the Wa State Central Committee (EPC) for further review.

New rules reaffirm that all mining rights belong to the EPC and require investors to apply for a three-year exploration permit before applying for a full mining licence.

The EPC’s decision on Man Maw is pending, according to the ITA. The Association noted “optimistic forecasts” that full mining will be allowed to resume after the Chinese New Year, but said it may take time to re-mobilize the workforce after six months of suspension.

In the interim, surface stocks “are now reported to be mostly exhausted,” the ITA said.

China turns to metal imports

China’s imports of tin ore from Myanmar have appreciably slowed after the August suspension.

Flows of raw material over the border dropped in September before picking up again in October and November, likely reflecting the resumed processing of above-ground stocks.

Imports over the September-November period totalled 32,000 tons, compared with 65,000 tons in the prior three months, when operators were rushing to beat the Aug. 1 deadline.

Chinese smelters have turned to other suppliers such as Bolivia. Imports of ore and concentrate from the South American country nearly tripled to 8,550 tons in the first 11 months of 2023 from 2,900 in the year-earlier period.

Chinese production of refined tin has so far held up well. Output in December was up 4.5% on December 2022, while full year production of 168,938 tons was 1.8% higher than 2022, according to local data provider Shanghai Metal Market.

However, it is noticeable that Chinese stocks of refined metal have been falling and imports rising, suggesting domestic output is not matching demand.

Inventory registered with the Shanghai Futures Exchange has fallen from a May 2023 high of 9,673 tons to a current 6,402.

November’s import tally of 5,350 tons was the highest monthly count since May 2022 and cumulative imports of 28,500 tons were up 2.7% on the same period of 2022, when refined tin imports reached their highest level since 2012.

Demand recovery

The Western market has been well supplied in recent months and can afford to lose those units to China.

LME stocks of tin more than doubled to 7,700 tons and physical premiums slid over the course of last year.

Demand from the electronic goods sector, which accounts for around half of all tin demand in the form of circuit-board solder, has been particularly weak.

Sales of semiconductors, a useful proxy for tin solder demand, likely fell by 9.4% in 2023, according to the latest forecast from industry body World Semiconductor Trade Statistics.

However, it expects “a robust recovery” in 2024, anticipating year-on-year growth of 13.1% led by the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions.

How well the tin market can handle that sort of demand rebound will depend in large part on how long it takes the Wa State leadership to approve the full return of the Man Maw tin mine.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Barbara Lewis)

A year where the gold price sets an all-time record should be unalloyed good news for the mining and exploration industry, which despite all the buzz surrounding battery metals and the energy transition still represents the backbone of the junior market.

Metal and mineral markets are volatile at the best of times – the nickel, cobalt and lithium price collapse in 2023 was extreme but not entirely unprecedented. Rare earth producers, platinum group metal watchers, iron ore followers, and gold and silver bugs for that matter, have been through worse.

Mining companies have become better at navigating choppy waters, but the forced closure of one of the biggest copper mines to come into production in recent decades served as a stark reminder of the outsized risks miners face over and above market swings.

Panama shuts down giant copper mine

After months of protests and political pressure, at the end of November the Panama government ordered the closure of First Quantum Minerals’ Cobre Panama mine following a ruling by the Supreme Court that declared the mining contract for the operation unconstitutional.

Public figures including climate activist Greta Thunberg and Hollywood actor Leonardo Di Caprio backed the protests and shared a video calling for the “mega mine” to cease operations, which quickly went viral. 

FQM’s latest statement on Friday said Panama’s government hasn’t provided a legal basis to the Vancouver-based company for pursuing the closure plan, a plan that the industries ministry of the central American nation said will only be presented in June next year.

FQM has filed two notices of arbitration over the closure of the mine, which has not been operating since protesters blocked access to its shipping port in October. However, arbitration would not be the company’s preferred outcome, said CEO Tristan Pascall.

In the aftermath of the unrest, FQM has said it should have better communicated the value of the $10 billion mine to the wider public, and will now spend more time engaging with Panamanians ahead of a national election next year. FQM shares have bounced in the past week, but is still trading more than 50% below the high hit during July this year.

Projected copper deficit evaporates

Cobre Panama’s shutdown and unexpected operational disruptions forcing copper mining companies to slash output has seen the sudden removal of around 600,000 tons of expected supply would, moving the market from a large expected surplus into balance, or even a deficit.

The next couple of years were supposed to be a time of plenty for copper, thanks to a series of big new projects starting up around the world.

The expectation across most of the industry was for a comfortable surplus before the market tightens again later this decade when surging demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure is expected to collide with a lack of new mines.

Instead, the mining industry has highlighted how vulnerable supply can be — whether due to political and social opposition, the difficulty of developing new operations, or simply the day-to-day challenge of pulling rocks up from deep beneath the earth.

Lithium price routed on supply surge

The price of lithium was decimated in 2023, but predictions for next year are far from rosy. Lithium demand from electric vehicles is still growing rapidly, but the supply response has overwhelmed the market.

Global lithium supply, meanwhile, will jump by 40% in 2024, UBS said earlier this month, to more than 1.4 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

Output in top producers Australia and Latin America will rise 22% and 29% respectively, while that in Africa is expected to double, driven by projects in Zimbabwe, the bank said.

Chinese production will also jump 40% in the next two years, said UBS, driven by a major CATL project in southern Jiangxi province.

The investment bank expects Chinese lithium carbonate prices could fall by more than 30% next year, dipping as low as 80,000 yuan ($14,800) per tonne in 2024, averaging at around 100,000 yuan, equivalent to production costs in Jiangxi, China’s biggest producing region of the chemical.

Lithium assets still in high demand

In October, Albemarle Corp. walked away from its $4.2 billion takeover of Liontown Resources Ltd., after Australia’s richest woman built up a blocking minority and effectively scuppered one of the largest battery-metals deals to date.

Eager to add new supply, Albemarle had pursued its Perth-based target for months, eying its Kathleen Valley project — one of Australia’s most promising deposits. Liontown agreed to the US company’s “best and final” offer of A$3 a share in September — a near 100% premium to the price before Albemarle’s takeover interest was made public in March.

Albemarle had to contend with the arrival of combative mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, as her Hancock Prospecting steadily built up a 19.9% stake in Liontown. Last week, she became the single largest investor, with enough clout to potentially block a shareholder vote on the deal.

In December, SQM teamed up with Hancock Prospecting to make a sweetened A$1.7 billion ($1.14 billion) bid for Australian lithium developer Azure Minerals, the three parties said on Tuesday.

The deal would give the world’s no.2 lithium producer SQM a foothold in Australia with a stake in Azure’s Andover project and a partnership with Hancock, which has rail infrastructure and local experience in developing mines.

Chile, Mexico take control of lithium

This week Chile’s President Gabriel Boric hailed the formation of a new government-controlled lithium partnership that fuses assets of state-run Codelco with private miner SQM, as the leftist leader advances his push for greater public control over the battery metal. 

SQM said it would partner with copper giant Codelco for the future development and production of the metal in the Atacama salt flat, in a tie-up set to kick off in 2025 and run through 2060.

The deal gives Codelco majority control in line with the president’s plans announced in April to strengthen state control of lithium to generate more broad-based benefits from surging demand and to allow only public-private partnerships to participate in its exploitation.

For much of the year, the firms had been locked in talks over the future of lithium mining and production in the salt flat, located in Chile’s north and the home to 90% of the nation’s lithium reserves. The South American country has the world’s largest proven lithium reserves.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in February signed a decree handing over responsibility for lithium reserves to the energy ministry.

Lopez Obrador urged the private sector to work with the new state miner, saying the size of the investment needed means the government needs partners.

But analysts argue that companies are more likely to focus near-term investments in Chile or Argentina’s sprawling salt flats, where industries are more established and policies more market-friendly.

In August, Chinese lithium giant Ganfeng said Mexico’s mining authorities had issued a notice to its local subsidiaries indicating nine of its concessions had been terminated.

Gold to build on record-setting year

The New York futures price of gold set an all-time high at the beginning of December and looks set to surpass the peak going into the new year. 

London’s gold price benchmark hit an all-time high of $2,069.40 per troy ounce at an afternoon auction on Wednesday, surpassing the previous record of $2,067.15 set in August 2020, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) said.

“I can think of no clearer demonstration of gold’s role as a store of value than the enthusiasm with which investors across the world have turned to the metal during the recent economic and geopolitical turmoils,” said LMBA’s chief executive officer Ruth Crowell. 

JPMorgan predicted a new record back in July but expected the new high to occur in the second quarter of 2024. The basis of JPMorgan’s optimism for 2024 – falling US interest rates – remains intact:

“The bank has an average price target of $2,175 an ounce for bullion in the final quarter of 2024, with risks skewed to the upside on a forecast for a mild US recession that’s likely to hit sometime before the Fed starts easing.”

Even as gold climbed new peaks, exploration spending on the precious metal dipped. A study published in November overall mining exploration budgets fell this year for the first time since 2020, dropping 3% to $12.8 billion at the 2,235 companies that allocated funds to find or expand deposits.

Despite the sparkling gold price, gold exploration budgets, which historically have been driven more by the junior mining sector than any other metal or mineral, dropped by 16% or $1.1 billion year-on-year to just under $6 billion, representing 46% of the global total. 

That’s down from 54% in 2022 amid higher spending on lithium, nickel and other battery metals, a surge in spending on uranium and rare earths and an uptick for copper. 

Mining’s year of M&A, spin-offs, IPOs, and SPAC deals

In December, speculation about Anglo American (LON: AAL) becoming the target of a takeover by a rival or a private equity firm mounted, as weakness in the shares of the diversified miner persisted.

If Anglo American doesn’t turn operations around and its share price continues to lag, Jefferies analysts say they can’t “rule out the possibility that Anglo is involved in the broader trend of industry consolidation,” according to their research note.

In October, Newcrest Mining shareholders voted strongly in favour of accepting the roughly $17 billion buyout bid from global gold mining giant Newmont Corporation.

Newmont (NYSE: NEM) plans to raise $2 billion in cash through mine sales and project divestments following the acquisition. The acquisition brings the company’s value to around $50 billion and adds five active mines and two advanced projects to Newmont’s portfolio.

Breakups and spin-offs were also a big part of 2023 corporate developments.

After being rebuffed several times in its bid to buy all of Teck Resources, Glencore and its Japanese partner are in a better position to bring the $9 billion bid for the diversified Canadian miner’s coal unit to a close. Glencore CEO Gary Nagle’s initial bid for the entire company faced stiff opposition from Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and from the premier of British Columbia, where the company is based.

Vale (NYSE: VALE) is not seeking new partners for its base metals unit following a recent equity sale, but could consider an IPO for the unit within three or four years, CEO Eduardo Bartolomeo said in October.

Vale recruited former Anglo American Plc boss Mark Cutifani in April to lead an independent board to oversee the $26-billion copper and nickel unit created in July when the Brazilian parent company sold 10% to Saudi fund Manara Minerals.

Shares in Indonesian copper and gold miner, PT Amman Mineral Internasional, have surged more than fourfold since listing in July and are set to keep rising after its inclusion in major emerging market indexes in November.

Amman Mineral’s $715 million IPO was the largest in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy this year and counted on strong demand by global and domestic funds.

Not all dealmaking went smoothly this year.

Announced in June, a $1 billion metals deal by blank-cheque fund ACG Acquisition Co to acquire a Brazilian nickel and and a copper-gold mine from Appian Capital, was terminated in September.

The deal was backed by Glencore, Chrysler parent Stellantis and Volkswagen’s battery unit PowerCo through an equity investment, but as nickel prices slumped there was a lack of interest from minority investors at the stage of the $300 million equity offering which ACG planned as part of the deal.

Talks in 2022 to acquire the mines also fell through after bidder Sibanye-Stillwater pulled out. That transaction is now the subject of legal proceedings after Appian filed a $1.2 billion claim against the South African miner.

Uranium upsurge

In late November uranium prices scaled $80 per pound for the first time in 15 years, driven by a resurgence in demand for nuclear power and supply disruptions.

Global yellowcake supply might reach 145 million lb. this year or next according to the World Nuclear Association. But annual demand is already at 180 million lb. and the industry group expects it to nearly double to 300 million lb. by 2040.

Some 60 nuclear plants are under construction globally and more are planned. Countries like Germany and Japan that considered phasing them out are reversing course.

Activity in northern Saskatchewan’s Athabasca uranium hotspot is intensifying. NexGen received environmental approval for its Rook I project in November, the province’s first OK for such a project in two decades. Denison Mines released a feasibility study for its Wheeler River project before investing in junior explorer F3 Uranium’s Patterson Lake North property.

Also, IsoEnergy took over Consolidated Uranium in September. Uranium Energy spent C$570 million over the past two years buying Uranium One, UEX Corp. and Rio Tinto’s Roughrider project. Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners in October closed their deal to buy Westinghouse’s nuclear plant construction unit for $7.9 billion.

Nickel nosedive

In April, Indonesia’s PT Trimegah Bangun Persada, better known as Harita Nickel, raised 10 trillion rupiah ($672 million) in what was then Indonesia’s largest initial public offering of the year. 

Harita Nickel’s IPO quickly turned sour for investors, however, as prices for the metal entered a steady and long decline. Nickel is the worst performer among the base metals, nearly halving in value after starting 2023 trading above $30,000 a tonne.

Next year is not looking great for the devil’s copper either with top producer Nornickel predicting a widening surplus due to lacklustre demand from electric vehicles and a ramp-up in supply from Indonesia, which also comes with a thick layer of cobalt:

“…due to the continuing destocking cycle in the EV supply chain, a greater share of non-nickel LFP batteries, and a partial shift from BEV to PHEV sales in China. Meanwhile, the launch of new Indonesian nickel capacities continued at a high pace.” 

Palladium also had a rough year, down by more than a third in 2023 despite a late charge from multi-year lows hit at the start of December. Palladium was last trading at $1,150 an ounce.

China flexes its critical mineral muscle

In July China announced it will clamp down on exports of two obscure yet crucial metals in an escalation of the trade war on technology with the US and Europe.

Beijing said exporters will need to apply for licenses from the commerce ministry if they want to start or continue to ship gallium and germanium out of the country and will be required to report details of the overseas buyers and their applications.

China is overwhelmingly the top source of both metals — accounting for 94% of gallium supply and 83% of germanium, according to a European Union study on critical raw materials this year. The two metals have a vast array of specialist uses across chipmaking, communications equipment and defence.

In October, China said it would require export permits for some graphite products to protect national security. China is the world’s top graphite producer and exporter. It also refines more than 90% of the world’s graphite into the material that is used in virtually all EV battery anodes, which is the negatively charged portion of a battery.

US miners said China’s move underscores the need for Washington to ease its own permit review process. Nearly one-third of the graphite consumed in the United States comes from China, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents auto supply chain companies.

In December, Beijing banned the export of technology to make rare earth magnets on Thursday, adding it to a ban already in place on technology to extract and separate the critical materials.

Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion for use in electric vehicles, wind turbines and electronics.

While Western countries are trying to launch their own rare earth processing operations, the ban is expected to have the biggest impact on so-called “heavy rare earths,” used in electric vehicle motors, medical devices and weaponry, where China has a virtual monopoly on refining.

The most-traded December tin contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange lost 3.3% to 193,540 yuan ($27,062.85) per metric ton as of 0441 GMT, the lowest since April.

Prices were under supply pressure as domestic production remained steady, plus higher imports, analysts at Hongyuan Futures noted.

Myanmar’s Wa militia, a main producing region of tin ore, suspended its mining activities in August.

Local ore selection plants resumed operation in mid-September, leading to more supplies to China in recent months, they added.

China imported 25,299 tons of tin concentrate in October, up 248.3% from September and up 124.2% from last October, customs data showed.

Meanwhile, demand for the metal used in electronics remained tepid as end users focused on destocking at year-end, analysts said.

Weighing on prices further was a gloomy demand outlook as China recorded a slower-than-expected growth in industrial profits last month.

Regardless, the dollar edged lower on Tuesday to a three-month low after slipping overnight on weaker-than-expected new home sales data, making the greenback-priced commodity cheaper for buyers.

Three-month tin on the London Metal Exchange was up 1.4% at $23,295 per ton.

Elsewhere, LME copper held unchanged at $8,363 a ton, aluminum gained 0.2% to $2,214, lead rose 0.5% to $2,173.50, while nickel dipped 0.2% to $16,045, zinc declined 0.1% to $2,537.

SHFE copper slipped 0.3% to 68,020 yuan, aluminum shed 0.2% to 18,840 yuan a ton, lead slid 0.9% to 16,090 yuan, nickel fell 1.2% to 123,510 yuan, while zinc gained 0.1% to 21,165 yuan.

($1 = 7.1480 Chinese yuan)

(By Siyi Liu and Dominique Patton; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Janane Venkatraman)

In a paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the scientists explain that they have tested a new technique they hope can replace energy-intensive chemical engineering processes harking back to the early 20th century and relying on catalysts made from solid materials. 

The new process instead uses liquid metals, in this case dissolving tin and nickel which gives them unique mobility, enabling them to migrate to the surface of liquid metals and react with input molecules such as canola oil. This results in the rotation, fragmentation, and reassembly of canola oil molecules into smaller organic chains, including propylene, a high-energy fuel crucial for many industries.

“Our method offers an unparalleled possibility to the chemical industry for reducing energy consumption and greening chemical reactions,” lead researcher Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh said in a media statement. “It’s expected that the chemical sector will account for more than 20% of emissions by 2050. But chemical manufacturing is much less visible than other sectors—a paradigm shift is vital.”

The new process takes into account the fact that atoms in liquid metals are more randomly arranged and have greater freedom of movement than solids. This allows them to easily come into contact with, and participate in, chemical reactions. 

“Theoretically, they can catalyze chemicals at much lower temperatures—meaning they require far less energy,” Kalantar-Zadeh said.

In their research, he and his colleagues dissolved high-melting-point nickel and tin in a gallium-based liquid metal with a melting point of only 30° centigrade.

“By dissolving nickel in liquid gallium, we gained access to liquid nickel at very low temperatures—acting as a ‘super’ catalyst. In comparison solid nickel’s melting point is 1,455° centigrade. The same effect, to a lesser degree, is also experienced for tin metal in liquid gallium,” study first author Junma Tang said. “The metals were dispersed in liquid metal solvents at the atomic level.”

The scientists, thus, had access to single-atom catalysts, which have the highest surface area accessibility for catalysis, offering a remarkable advantage to the chemical industry.

Kalantar-Zadeh, Tang and their co-authors said their formula could also be used for other chemical reactions by mixing metals using low-temperature processes.

“It requires such low temperature to catalyze that we could even theoretically do it in the kitchen with the gas cooktop—but don’t try that at home,” Tang said.

At the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) that took place in Sydney, Australia, from October 31 to November 2, 2023, the Peruvian Minister of Energy and Mines, Oscar Vera Gargurevich, said that the government is working on creating legal avenues to unblock mining projects and attract more investments.

“We are removing permitting obstacles and other procedures that hinder the growth of the mining industry,” Vera Gargurevich said.

The official noted that the country is also focusing on strengthening its legal framework so that foreign investors can take advantage of the massive potential Peru has when it comes to its copper, iron, gold, lithium and tin resources and, thus, develop mining exploration and exploitation projects.

“Mining will help provide the resources we need to support better education, healthcare, infrastructure, basic services and everything that leads to the wellbeing of our children and all Peruvians,” Vera Gargurevich said. “Peru is back.”

On a similar note, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Juan Carlos Mathews, said during a presentation at the London Investment Roadshow 2023 that Peru is working to consolidate its portfolio of mining projects and attract more investors, as the Dina Boluarte administration is convinced that miners’ presence will improve the quality of life and strengthen the capabilities of a population to looks into the future and not be opposed to mining.

During the event, which took place on November 1-2, 2023, and was organized by J.P. Morgan, the Financial Times and the Peruvian Commission for the Promotion of Exports and Tourism, Mathews held private meetings with representatives from Anglo American, Hochschild Mining, Goldman Sachs, Lloyds Bank, RBC Capital Markets and Lazard, among others.

According to Mathews, the main topics discussed at the meetings were related to mining prospects, energy investments, trade and investment facilitation, and environmental and agricultural projects.

The minister pointed out that over the past 20 years, UK investments in Peru added up to $12.9 billion, 83% of which were focused on the metals sector, followed by the food, energy and tourism sectors.

Talking to local media, Attorney César Siles said that the tribunal upheld Bolivia’s defence and rejected the plaintiffs’ claims, thus saving the Andean nation about $500 million in damages.

The case was presented before the PCA in January 2018, when the estate of the owner of the Orlandini Mining Company filed an international lawsuit accusing Bolivia of illegally expropriating the firm’s tin assets in the country.

The lawsuit tried to replicate a similar one presented by Glencore, which obtained $253 million after the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that Bolivia breached a UK-Bolivian treaty when it nationalized Glencore’s mines.

However, in the case of the Orlandini Mining Company, the court ruled that Bolivia hadn’t violated the 2001 investment treaty between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Bolivia concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investment when it reversed the firm’s mining concessions dating back to the 1980s.

“The most important thing is that the case cannot be revised,” the Attorney General said. “The Tribunal’s ruling has been issued and it favours Bolivia.”

Siles pointed out that his government will probably have to bear half of the costs of litigation, established at $600,000. He also noted that, in compliance with the principle of confidentiality, the complete content of the arbitration award, which does not differ from the substantive decision, will be shared with the parties at a later time.

China has long had a warm relationship with the group that rules the self-proclaimed Wa state in the country’s north, an inaccessible corner known as a hub for illegal narcotics trade — but links have been tested by the Wa decision earlier this year to suspend mining, cutting off nearly a third of China’s total tin ore supply.

Tensions have now been exacerbated by Beijing’s efforts to shut down cyber-scam operations in the border region, a flourishing enterprise that funds organized crime and often targets Chinese nationals. Beijing’s crackdown has targeted United Wa State Army officials it says are ringleaders. Xinhua recently reported more than 2,300 suspects have been captured in Myanmar as part of a broader crackdown and escorted across the border.

“We anticipate that prices will edge higher in 2024 as the seaborne tin market starts to see a fall in supplies as the mining ban of Myanmar rolls on and export ban of Indonesia comes into effect,” BMI, a unit of Fitch Group, said in a note earlier this month.

The Chinese crackdown might delay moves by the Wa state and the ruling Pao family to review mining rules to allow operations to resume, according to five tin traders and industry executives, who declined to be identified as they aren’t allowed to speak to the media. They had anticipated mining would restart this year, but expectations have now been pushed out until the first quarter of 2024.

Semiconductor demand

Some Wa state ore processors — which turn the raw material into concentrate — have resumed working, the people said. But they are operating at low efficiency because of insufficient stockpiles.

That might create short-term supply disruption as demand from the semiconductor industry — which uses tin in electronic circuits — improves.

Tin is not yet in crisis: inventories are rising in London Metal Exchange warehouses. But supply has already faced repeated blows this year from protests in Peru and expectations that Indonesia, the world’s largest exporter, will ban overseas sales as part of its campaign to develop processing capacity for metals at home.

Since the discovery of large deposits in Wa State, Myanmar has become a crucial tin producer, and a driver of the benchmark price on the LME. That has handed considerable power to the UWSA. the largest ethnic armed group in a nation in the throes of civil war since the military seized power in a coup in 2021.

The tin ban earlier this year sent prices 12% higher to their strongest level in nine months. Prices jumped again in August when Wa began enforcing an exploration and extraction halt. At that point, almost two-thirds of China’s imports of tin-in-concentrate were coming from Myanmar, with Wa accounting for some 70% of that.

(By Alfred Cang and Philip J. Heijmans)

The Canadian miner said that water pumped from the old mine will be treated at its newly-built $8.5 million plant, at a rate of up to 25,000 cubic metres per day.

It will then be released into the Red River, which meets the sea at Godrevy in St Ives Bay.

The process, which is expected to take 18 months to complete, is part of Cornish Metals’ efforts to reopen the South Crofty tin-copper mine, which has been shut since 1998 following more than 400 years of almost continuous production.

“The start of dewatering of the South Crofty mine is an important milestone for the continued advancement of the project towards an investment decision,” chief executive Richard Williams said in the statement.

The Vancouver-based company noted the project will have a positive impact on water quality in the Red river, as it presently receives untreated water from the mine as a legacy of past mining operations.

The water discharged from South Crofty will serve a dual purpose, the company said, as it will power a hydro-turbine, generating around 15% of the energy required by the water treatment plant.

Cornish’s ultimate goal is to secure a leading place in the development of an industry for the battery metal in the UK.

Producing in 2026

The start-up, formerly known as Strongbow Explorations, completed the acquisition of the South Crofty and United Downs copper-tin projects in 2016. A year later, it finished a preliminary economic assessment, which demonstrated the economic viability of re-opening the operation.

Cornish Metals also acquired additional mineral rights in Cornwall, covering an area of about 15,000 hectares that hold past-producing mines which were historically worked for copper, tin, zinc, and tungsten.

Last year, the company raised about $51 million (£40.5m) in funding, which it will use to construct a mine water treatment plant, as well as dewater the mine, and complete a feasibility study.

There is currently no primary mine production of tin in Europe or North America and the US has included the metal in a list of minerals considered critical to the country’s economic and national security.

South Crofty could generate up to 5,000 tonnes of tin a year, with first production expected in 2026. The company said the mine will create up to 270 direct jobs and support a further 750 in the region, one of the UK’s most underprivileged.

The Penouta Sn, Ta and Nb mine is located in the municipality of Viana do Bolo, and is currently the only tantalum and niobium mine in production in Europe. It covers 282 hectares and has certified resources of more than 76 million tonnes, measured and indicated, according to NI 43-101.  Mineral resources in the area were exploited from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1980s, with research being reactivated in 2011 by Strategic Minerals Spain, focusing on the use of tailings from the old exploitation. 

The Court’s Litigation Section issued the ruling in response to a complaint submitted by environmental organization Ecoloxistas en Acción, whose members fear the impacts the mine may have on the protected area of Pena Trevinca, part of the EU’s Natura 2000 Network.

“Ecoloxistas en Acción has been denouncing for years the impacts of the Penouta mining operation in Viana do Bolo, including the dumping of waste in the nearby rivers, thus affecting the Pena Trevinca LIC,” the activists said in a communiqué.

“Despite the warnings and allegations of environmentalist organizations, the Xunta de Galicia (regional government) issued a favourable Environmental Impact Statement in March 2022 that allowed the company to start open-pit exploitation, increasing the environmental impacts without properly assessing the effect on the Network Natura 2000, hydrology and nearby houses in the village of Penouta. Now, they demand that the Xunta respects the court decision and orders the immediate stoppage of the mining activity in compliance with the order.”

Strategic Minerals, however, said that the NGO’s claims, and therefore the tribunal’s decision, are based on inaccurate information related to exploitation activities affecting irrigation and the immediate area.

In the company’s view, the decision cannot be justified under Spanish law because the proper legal process for the granting of the section C permit by the Xunta adhered to all applicable consultative, regulatory and legal requirements.

“The company’s mineral exploitation activities at the Penouta project have always remained in strict compliance with all environmental controls and reporting requirements, including but not limited to (a) testing water quality and discharge; (b) monitoring air quality, flora and fauna; and (c) the reforestation of areas of the Penouta project that had been abandoned by the previous operators approximately 40 years ago,” the firm’s press brief states. 

Looking for solutions

According to the miner, it is working together with the Xunta to explore all available legal avenues to reverse the Court’s decision and to expedite the reinstatement of the section C permit. This includes the initiation of an appeal to reverse the decision. 

Strategic Minerals also said that while the appeal process is ongoing, it is allowed to conduct mineral exploitation operations at Penouta.

“The unilateral and unfounded decision of the TSXG to suspend the section C permit at the Penouta project is a decision we cannot support and which compromises the coexistence between the mining industry and nature as well as affects the economic viability of the Penouta project and livelihood of hundreds of families,” the company’s CEO, Jaime Perez Branger, said.

“Strategic Minerals has always engaged in responsible mining practices and operated within Spanish mining law regulations. We believe that the decision of the TSXG disregards the comprehensive environmental regulations currently in place and the administrative process the company went through to ensure that such regulations were followed.” 

Perez Branger pointed out that his office will work “relentlessly” to explore all avenues of appeal. 

“Not only for the sake of employees, the community, our shareholders and business partners, but also for the promise of sustainable growth, shared prosperity, and environmental responsibility,” he said.

The Canadian miner’s statement also included a quote by Pablo Fernández Vila, director general of the Xunta de Galicia, who emphasized that the concession to exploit section C was granted after a rigorous process and in accordance with current legislation.

At the end of Q1 2022, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s biggest miners hit an all-time record of a collective $1.75 trillion as copper spent time above $10,000 a tonne, real nickel trades were being made above $40,000, lithium shipped for over $60,000 and everything from gold and platinum to uranium and tin were rallying hard. 

Uranium prices have doubled since then to above $60 a pound, tin is also trading higher, although well below its March 2022 peak while gold’s recent safe haven rally means the precious metal is also trading higher compared to March 2021.

Iron ore, where the top diversified mining companies dig for most of their profits, has also held up remarkably well, trading at $120 a tonne this week, little changed from end-June.  

Base and battery metals however have entered a deep slump since those heady days. Copper, zinc and aluminium are firmly in bear market territory down by a fifth or more, nickel and palladium investors are nursing 40%+ losses, cobalt is nearing record lows and lithium prices are hovering above $20,000.

After defying weakness on metals markets due to high expectations of strong future demand, particularly for copper, lithium and nickel, mining stock valuations have now succumbed. 

At the end Q3 2023, mining valuations for the industry’s top tier have slumped a total of $516 billion since the all-time highs. Declines so far this year total $145 billion for a combined market value of $1.38 trillion – back to levels seen at the end of September 2021.  

Just how bad sentiment is across the board is evident from the best performer list for Q3, which includes for the first time three counters which lost ground over the period. 

Archipelago ascent

The first Indonesian company to make it into MINING.COM’s ranking of world’s 50 most valuable mining companies, Amman Minerals Internasional, has surged 213% in US dollar terms since its July debut in Jakarta to reach a market capitalisation just shy of 450 trillion rupiah, or more than $28 billion.

Amman Minerals is the owner and operator of the giant Batu Hijau copper and gold mine in production since the turn of the millennium and is developing the adjacent Elang project on the island of Sumbawa. 

Elang is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold porphyry deposits and is currently in the feasibility stage. Elang boasts 4.7 million tonnes of proven and probable copper reserves and over 15 million ounces of gold.

Indonesia has become a red-hot IPO market this year and Amman was the largest of the year so far raising more than $700m in its IPO, and now sits at number 11 on the ranking. 

Bloomberg reports Amman Minerals’ ascent has minted at least six new billionaires, including chairman Agus Projosasmito, whose stake in the company is now worth $2.7 billion. The miner’s spectacular market performance has also added $4 billion to the net worth of Anthoni Salim, who helms one of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates, taking the tycoon’s paper billions to within shouting distance of double digits.

Indonesia’s other major mining IPO, Harita Nickel, is on a different trajectory altogether. Listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange  in April raising $672m, the company has had a tough go of it and the stock has shed more than 60% since then as nickel prices continue to decline.

Lithium losses

The strength of the lithium sector outside China had been remarkable given the precipitous decline in prices for the battery metal since hitting all time highs above $80,000 a tonne in November last year. 

But during Q3 the slump in prices of the battery raw material caught up with the six stocks represented in the Top 50, for a combined loss of over $30 billion in market cap over the three month period to just over $70 billion. 

Measured from their 52-week highs the correction in the sector has been brutal – Perth-based Pilbara Mineral has bled 31% in market cap, making it the best performer. Mineral Resources has given up 37% while the declines for Albemarle, SQM, Ganfeng and Tianqi have been over 50%.  

Pilbara Minerals, which unlike its peers is clinging onto year-to-date gains,  joined the Top 50 last quarter and brought the number of companies based in the Western Australia capital to five, surpassing the tally of Vancouver, British Columbia as the top home base in the ranking.

The chances of another Perth-based lithium miner, IGO, of entering the Top 50 has dimmed. With a market cap of $5.4 billion, the company is down to the mid-60s in the ranking. 

The merger of US-based Livent and Australia-Argentina lithium miner Allkem, expected to close before 2023 is out, may also not be enough for the combined firm to enter the Top 50. Together the two companies are now worth $7.4 billion, which would edge out AngloGold Ashanti for the last spot, but the fortunes of lithium and gold going into 2024 are diverging widely.  

The blocking tactics of Gina Rhinehart’s Hancock Prospecting against the takeover of Liontown Resources by Albemarle turned out to be successful with the US lithium giant deciding to walk away from the deal this week.

Liontown’s 127% surge this year afforded the Perth-based company a market value of $4 billion before the collapse of the takeover which halted trading in the stock. Liontown on Thursday said it has secured the necessary funding to bring its Kathleen Valley project into production.

Enriched uranium

In September, uranium scaled $60 per pound for the first time since 2011. The breakthrough for the nuclear fuel comes after a decade in the doldrums following the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

The World Nuclear Association predicts world reactor requirements for uranium to surge to almost 130,000 tonnes (~285 million pounds) in 2040. That’s up from an estimate of 65,650 tonnes in 2023. 

A significant portion of the WNA’s upward growth adjustments can be attributed to the accelerated adoption of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) as part of decarbonisation efforts for a range of industries from shipping to data centres with powering remote mine sites near the top of the list for SMR potential.

Canada’s Cameco makes the best performer list over the three months again in Q3 after spending much of the post-Fukushima period in the wilderness. The Saskatoon-based company enters the top 30 for the first time after jumping 19 places so far this year.    

The value of shares in Kazatomprom, the world number one uranium producer, topped $10 billion at the end of Q3 placing it at position 36. Until this year the state-owned Kazakh company was outside earshot of the Top 50 since its dual-listing in London and Astana in 2018.  

Diversified drop

BHP’s market position has also been supported by uranium prices as the Melbourne-based company boosts output at its Olympic Dam operations. 

The world’s top mining company’s market value has declined by less than 8% year to date for a $142 valuation, outperforming other diversified heavyweights Rio Tinto, down 17%, Glencore (–21%), Vale (–25%) and Anglo American (–38%). 

London-listed Anglo American has had a rough year in part due to its exposure to platinum group metals and control of Anglo American Platinum, and is now valued at $32 billion after peaking at $70 billion in March 2021.  

Investors in Anglo, with a history going back more than a hundred years on the South African gold and diamond fields, have had a particularly wild ride over the last few years. In January 2016, Anglo’s market cap fell below $5 billion after it came close to suffocating under a pile of debt.  

The dramatic slump in palladium prices (down 38% this year) and platinum (–16%) have also seen AngloPlat drop to its lowest position ever at a valuation of $10 billion, down from nearly $40 billion end-March 2021. 

Former PGM high flyers Impala Platinum and Sibanye Stillwater, both valued around the $4 billion mark today, have lost sight of the Top 50 altogether. 

*NOTES:

Source: MINING.COM, Mining Intelligence, Morningstar, GoogleFinance, company reports. Trading data from primary-listed exchange at Sep 29-Oct 5, 2023 where applicable, currency cross-rates Oct 7, 2023. 

Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining, which owns the world’s largest gold mine, Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec. 

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialised financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem as does battery makers like CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining still make up a small portion of its valuation.  

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology.

Tin was used in the Bronze Age for 150 years. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and in the Bronze Age, it was used to make a range of goods including swords, helmets, bracelets, plates and pitchers.

A recent study by a team of archaeometallurgists refutes previous findings published in 2022, which state that most of the tin came from the Mushiston tin deposit in northwestern Tajikistan, as well as from two mines in the Taurus Mountains near the present-day Turkish-Syrian border.

For this previous analysis, researchers took samples of 105 tin ingots from the wreck, determining chemical and isotopic signatures of 90% of the tin cargo. In particular, they measured the isotope ratios of tin and lead, which, like the chemical composition, provide clues to the origin of the tin.

Also, the proportion of the trace element tellurium points to tin deposits in Central Asia. The group claims to be able to infer a clear attribution based on the matching signatures between the ingots from Uluburun and tin ore samples from the above mentioned mines.

But according to the new paper, the data doesn’t support this interpretation or a clear conclusion.

For the current study, Daniel Berger from the Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry (CEZA), extensively checked chemical and isotopic analyses from previous studies and cross-checked them with the 2022 data set.

“Due to the isotopic ratios and chemical characteristics, it would be even more likely that at least part of the cargo of tin ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck originated from Cornwall in Britain,” Berger said. “In particular, the comparison with Bronze Age tin ingots from Britain and Israel which we have considered in the past on a similar question of origin suggests this conclusion.”

He added that more samples and analyses of ores from European and Asian tin deposits were needed.

Overall, the Bronze Age lasted from the late fourth millennium to the early first millennium BCE—but with different beginnings and ends depending on the region of the world. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin in a ratio of nine to one, is significantly harder than copper alone.

Copper ores are found in many regions of Eurasia and Africa. However, tin ores that were accessible in the Bronze Age can only be found in a few places in Central Asia, Iran and Europe.

It is all the more astonishing that some of the earliest bronze artifacts have been found in the Mesopotamian city-states of the Tigris–Euphrates river system. But there are no tin deposits there; the metal had to be obtained via long-distance trade.

“Numerous archaeological finds show that the British Isles and Central Europe formed an economic sphere with the Mediterranean region in the Bronze Age and was connected via the transport routes of the Danube, Rhine and Rhône rivers, or via the ocean,” Ernst Pernicka, co-author of the new paper, said. “For instance, amber beads likely traded from the Baltic were found in the Uluburun wreck, indicating the existence of north-south trade routes.”

The use of standardized weights had already spread in the course of the second millennium BCE, coming from Egypt and Mesopotamia, via Syria, Anatolia and the Aegean, and across the Alps to Central Europe. These standard weights were used to weigh merchandise, including tin ingots.

For the time of the Uluburun ship, neither weight systems nor established trade connections to Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean can be documented for Central Asia, which underscores the likelihood that the tin originated from the West.

The rebuild began in June in reaction to a short squeeze across LME time-spreads but has continued even after the cash premium flipped to a record discount in August.

Combined with elevated stocks registered with the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE), global visible tin inventory of over 15,000 tonnes is more than double the level this time last year.

The visible shift to supply surplus comes when production is significantly disrupted in Myanmar, the world’s third largest producer of the metal.

But tin’s supply problems are more than offset by weak demand.

Around half of the tin produced every year is used as a soldering material on circuit boards, linking usage to the fortunes of the consumer electronics sector.

A shift to home working and home entertainment during Covid-19 caused demand for electronic goods to boom but the sector has since slumped as high inflation in many countries undermines consumer appetite for purchases.

There are signs, however, of demand recovery and, with supply still constrained in Myanmar, the market may need as much stock as it can get.

Shift to surplus

LME stocks of tin were under 2,000 tonnes at the start of June but last week rose above 7,000 for the first time in over three years.

They have fallen back slightly to 6,805 tonnes after two days of net draws but, with just 260 tonnes of cancelled metal awaiting load-out, the uptrend looks likely to run for a while yet.

The initial impetus for the rebuild was the June squeeze on the LME contract. The cash premium over three-month delivery flared out to $1,704 per tonne in June, sucking spare metal into the LME warehouse network.

By the middle of August that premium had switched to a discount of $350 per tonne, the widest contango since at least 1989. The super-contango remains in place, the cash-to-three-months time-spread closing Tuesday valued at $299.

Yet the steady flow of tin into LME warehouses has not stopped with 865 tonnes of fresh warranting activity so far this month.

Boom and bust

Tin’s fortunes are closely tied to the consumer electronics sector, which has experienced a remarkable boom-and-bust cycle over the last three years.

Lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 fed consumer appetite for laptops and home entertainment systems.

Semiconductor sales, a useful proxy for tin usage in circuit-board soldering, surged by over 26% year-on-year in 2021, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

That translated into a boom year for tin demand, usage growing by 7.6%, led by a 12.2% rise in the soldering sector, according to the International Tin Association.

Boom then turned to bust.

The world gradually emerged from lockdown last year and consumer appetite for electronic goods this year has been suppressed by high inflation in many parts of the world.

Semiconductor sales were down by 17.1% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2023, a scale of decline last seen in the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Consumers everywhere have been limiting spending and had already loaded up with electronic goods during the previous year of lockdown.

However, global semiconductor sales have registered small month-on-month increases since April and the year-on-year gap narrowed to 11.8% in July, according to the SIA.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics agency forecasts global revenues to fall by 10.3% over the year as a whole but it is expecting a robust 11.8% recovery next year.

Much, of course, depends on inflation over the rest of 2023.

Supply crunch, demand slump

Rising stocks of tin on both London and Shanghai markets have blown away a lot of speculative froth from the market.

Money managers have trimmed their net long position in London from 1,508 contracts in June to just 366, while market open interest in Shanghai has collapsed from a record high of 137,828 contracts in March to a current 59,881.

The visible evidence of weak demand has counterbalanced concerns about supply from Myanmar after the semi-autonomous Wa State suspended all tin mining and processing activity at the start of August for a wide-ranging audit.

The LME three-month tin price has been tracking sideways, last trading at $26,000 per tonne, even as spreads gyrated wildly.

However, it remains to be seen how long the relative calm will last.

The suspension of raw materials supply from Myanmar to China has already led to several Chinese smelters taking downtime for maintenance work.

Shanghai stocks have started to draw, headline exchange inventory sliding from 9,608 tonnes at the start of August to 7,735 as of last Friday.

The inventory drain is likely to continue for as long as it takes the Wa authorities to complete their audit work, a time-line only they know.

With the slump in tin’s major end-use sector also at an end, the market may want to enjoy ample availability while it can.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Barbara Lewis)

Read More: Copper prices may jump 20%, aluminum by 36% as demand outpaces supply: forecast

Brian Ahern, Gerald’s global head of refined copper, and Brandon Kernan, desk head for aluminum and alumina, are among those leaving, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Keith Rowe-Wilson, a senior trader for copper and zinc in London, is also leaving, some of the people said.

Gerald was hit by a loss in its tin book earlier this year, according to some of the people. Reuters reported in June that Gerald had bought cargoes that were supposed to contain tin concentrate in Brazil but turned out to be sand.

Gerald representatives had no comment when reached by phone and email.

Founded in 1962, Gerald is well-known in the metals world, although these days its business is dwarfed in scale by industry leaders Glencore Plc and Trafigura Group.

The metals trading industry has struggled with growing headwinds this year, with prices under pressure and rising interest rates increasing the cost of financing. The sector has also been hit by a series of scandals that have dented confidence, including the shock revelation by Trafigura that it was the victim of a massive alleged nickel fraud.

(By Archie Hunter, Joe Deaux, Liz Yee Xing Ng and Jack Farchy)

The focus of this new resource, says Cornish, is the Lower Mine area, tin-only section of the project, which has been subject to review, including further digitization and modelling of historical data. The the Upper Mine polymetallic area has also been reported using current metal prices.

Assay results from recent drilling of the existing major structures at depth (No. 4, No. 8, Roskear and North Pool Zone) as part of a metallurgical testwork program have also been incorporated into the estimate.

Overall, the new MRE showed a 39% increase in tonnes and 31.6% increase in contained tin in the indicated category, and a 35.6% increase in tonnes and 15.5% increase in contained tin in the inferred category.

The majority of new resources are contained within the central part of the mine in No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, Main, Intermediate, North and Great Lodes following digitization and modelling of historical data. The major lode structures that comprise the resource remain open along strike and at depth.

“This is another positive development for South Crofty as we advance the project through to delivery of a feasibility study (FS) by the end of 2024 and continue to demonstrate the potential to increase the project’s mineral resource and mine life,” Cornish Metals CEO Richard Williams said in a news release.

The South Crofty project is host to a historical, high-grade, underground tin mine that started production in the 16th century, and continued operating until 1998. Between that period, about 450,000 tonnes of tin from the Central mining district have been mined.

Since acquiring the project in 2016, the company said it has demonstrated the economic viability of re-opening the operation and additional mineral rights containing past-producing mines. The property currently covers 1,490 hectares and 26 former producing mines.

The project is fully permitted, having obtained its underground mining licence valid until 2071, planning permission to construct a new process plant and a permit from the environment agency to dewater the mine.

Minsur SA — controlled by the Brescia family, one of Peru’s wealthiest — plans to track about 29,000 metric tons of tin a year, including its production in Brazil. Eventually, the Minespider traceability system would also cover gold mined in Peru, Minsur spokesman Gonzalo Quijandria said in an interview Monday.

The blockchain-based platform shows proof of origin to buyers of tin, one of the original conflict minerals given its extraction in places like the Congo. Much of the world’s tin also comes from informal mines in Southeast Asia. South American nations including Peru and Brazil are also grappling with new areas of illegal gold and copper mining.

“It’s not only an economic problem, it’s a security problem,” said Quijandria, head of corporate affairs and sustainability. “There’s a lot of criminal activity related to informal mining. For a country like Peru with a lot of informality in the economy, it is a really big issue.”

The initiative is billed as the largest industrial scale roll-out of traceability to date. But efforts to ensure compliance with environmental and labor standards are also becoming widespread in the cobalt industry, where transparency initiatives track supply chains from Congolese mines to electric vehicle production.

Tin, used as a solder in electronic circuits and in alloys as a protective coating, is also a key part of solar power infrastructure, with demand set to rise in the clean energy transition.

Minsur shares were up slightly at 10:07 am in Lima.

(By James Attwood)

Peruvian miner Minsur has announced an investment of at least $2 billion in five years as it expands its copper and tin operations, an executive told Reuters on Thursday.

Minsur is set to invest around $543 million in an underground project in Justa mine, which is owned by the firm and Chilean mining company Copec, Minsur corporate affairs executive Gonzalo Quijandria said in a phone interview with Reuters.

Another $381 million will be invested to expand the processing plant and to improve the Justa mine camp, which began operations in 2021, Quijandria said.

The mine produced 126,036 fine metric tons of copper last year and was the world’s seventh most productive copper mine, according to official data.

Peru is the world’s No. 2 copper producer.

Minsur also operates the only mine in Peru for tin, a relatively rare element, and produces about 9% of this metal globally, according to the company.

Regarding such a production, Quijandria said Minsur plans to invest $462 million in its tin production line and another $100 million in tin exploration projects in the country.

“They are sustaining investments that include new tailings dams in the San Rafael mine and improvements in the Pisco smelter,” he said.

Minsur also plans to invest some $342 million in the modernization of its polymetallic producer Minera Raura.

Earlier on Thursday, Peru’s ministry provided a different breakdown of figures from the company, and Reuters did not receive an immediate response to a query about the discrepancy.

The announcement followed a meeting between Minsur CEO Juan Luis Kruger and Peru’s energy and mines minister, Oscar Vera.

The Mina Justa Subterranea project will be the second largest and most modern underground mine in Peru,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that Minsur expects to present the first permits for the project in the first months of next year, with production expected to start in 2027.

(By Marco Aquino; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle, Paul Simao and Leslie Adler)

In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers note that the model is able to “envision” new but realistic corrosion-resistant alloy compositions. Its distinct power arises from fusing both numerical and textual data. Initially developed for the critical realm of resisting pitting corrosion in high-strength alloys, this model’s versatility can be extended to all alloy properties.

“Every alloy has unique properties concerning its corrosion resistance. These properties do not only depend on the alloy composition itself but also on the alloy’s manufacturing process. Current machine learning models are only able to benefit from numerical data. However, processing methodologies and experimental testing protocols, which are mostly documented by textual descriptors, are crucial to explaining corrosion,” Kasturi Narasimha Sasidhar, lead author of the publication and former postdoctoral researcher at MPIE, said in a media statement.

The research team used language processing methods, akin to ChatGPT, in combination with machine learning techniques for numerical data and developed a fully automated natural language processing framework. Moreover, involving textual data in the ML framework allows for identifying enhanced alloy compositions resistant to pitting corrosion.

“We trained the deep-learning model with intrinsic data that contain information about corrosion properties and composition. Now the model is capable of identifying alloy compositions that are critical for corrosion resistance even if the individual elements were not fed initially into the model,” Michael Rohwerder, co-author of the paper, said.

In the recently devised framework, Sasidhar, Rohwerder and the rest of their team harnessed manually gathered data as textual descriptors. Presently, their objective is to automate the process of data mining and seamlessly integrate it into the existing framework.

The incorporation of microscopy images marks another milestone, envisioning the next generation of AI frameworks that converge textual, numerical, and image-based data.

Production at 21 tin smelters surveyed by Antaike, with a total capacity of 320,000 metric tons and accounting for 97% of China’s total capacity, was at 13,428 metric tons last month.

The monthly decline was mainly attributed to Yunnan Tin, the world’s top refined tin producer, halting production.

Production at its tin branch would be suspended from July 11 for up to 45 days due to regular maintenance, Yunnan Tin said in a file to Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Last month saw China Tin, another leading producer, resume production after maintenance but at a slower-than-usual rate, Antaike noted.

As Myanmar’s mining ban took effect from August, ore shortage remained in the market, prompting more demand for scrap material.

Despite the monthly decline, July output of the metal used in electronics and semiconductor industries soared 210.1% from the same time a year earlier.

And Jan-July output rose 13.2% from the corresponding period last year, according to Antaike.

The International Tin Association expected the mining ban to cut China’s smelter output in the second half of this year.

(By Siyi Liu and Andrew Hayley; Editing by Louise Heavens)

Tin is the strongest performing metal on the London Metal Exchange (LME) this year, rising by 12% so far compared to a 1.4% gain for the next best performer, copper.

The LME tin cash contract is expected to average $25,000 a metric ton in the fourth quarter, down 10% from Monday’s close, according to a median forecast of 14 analysts polled by Reuters last month.

Gains were spurred by an announcement in April by Myanmar’s ethnic minority Wa militia of a suspension of all work at mines in areas it controls from Aug. 1.

“It’s hard to get too excited about the price upside. The fact that it’s been well-flagged means there’s been opportunity for people to prepare,” said Citi analyst Tom Mulqueen.

The Wa militia earns significant revenue from mining so it would be surprising if the ban lasted for more than a few months, he added.

“Our view is that the inventory levels are relatively strong and even if you get a couple months of disruption, the market should be able to absorb that.”

The run-up in prices was fuelled by speculative buying, with long positions held by investment funds on the LME more than doubling since April, but moves to lock in profits could weigh on the market, analysts said.

The Myanmar mining ban may dampen Chinese smelter output in the second half of 2023, but analysts note that tin production elsewhere is healthy, having rebounded since January due to gains from Indonesia, Peru and Bolivia.

The world’s biggest tin producing company, Indonesia’s PT Timah, aims to boost refined tin output by a third this year.

Another factor that may weigh on tin prices is weak global demand since more than half of global tin supply is used as solder for circuit boards for the semiconductor industry.

The world’s largest contract chipmaker recently forecast a drop of around 10% in 2023 sales.

“We suspect this ban on mining will take the sting out of the drag on prices we expect later this year from weakening global electronics demand,” Kieran Tompkins, commodities economist at Capital Economics, said in a note.

(By Eric Onstad; Editing by Mark Potter)

Three-month tin on the London Metal Exchange gained as much as 3.8% in the Asian morning trading session and was up 3% to $28,245 per metric ton by 0502 GMT.

The most-traded September tin contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange added 1.4% to 230,280 yuan ($32,023.36) per metric ton.

“We have confirmation that Wa State mines were closed on August 1 as mandated,” the ITA told Reuters.

Myanmar accounted for 77% of China’s tin ore imports last year, Chinese customs data showed. The Wa region is estimated to have accounted for over 70% of Myanmar’s tin production in 2022, the ITA said.

The ITA said tin smelters in China, the biggest consumer of Myanmar’s tin ore, have ensured enough immediate supply by stockpiling the metal previously.

The ban was announced in April when it immediately boosted prices of the metal that is used in the electronics and semiconductors sectors.

The ban’s short-term impact had been priced in, but the lasting supply disruption and steady demand outlook will support tin prices, said analysts at Orient Securities.

Despite supply concerns, weighing on the market was a strong dollar, making it less attractive to buy the greenback-priced commodity.

Most other metals on SHFE lost. Copper slid 1.2% to 68,930 yuan a metric ton, aluminum eased 0.5% to 18,440 yuan, zinc dropped 1.4% to 20,835 yuan, lead little moved at 15,950 yuan and nickel fell 2.8% to 167,590 yuan.

LME copper dipped 0.2% to $8,492.50 a metric ton, zinc nudged 0.1% lower to $2,480, lead slipped 0.1% to $2,145, while nickel climbed 0.5% to $21,665, aluminum gained 0.5% at $2,220 a metric ton.

($1 = 7.1910 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(By Siyi Liu and Andrew Hayley; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Sohini Goswami)

Smelters in China ensured enough immediate supply by stockpiling the metal ahead of the ban but, according to ITA, the suspension is likely to last for longer than the initially expected period of one to three months.

“Until Wa State resumes normal production, China smelting raw material supply is expected to gradually decrease, making it challenging to return to the production levels experienced in the first half of this year,” ITA said in a statement, giving no figures.

China sources over half of its import needs in tin concentrate from Myanmar, where the self-declared Wa State accounts for two thirds of production.

As Wa State is committed to the policy enforcement, reopening of mines may take longer, and the market’s initial expectation that processing of stockpiles could still go ahead “appears to have been quashed by the ban on ore transport”, ITA added.

There are currently 2 million metric tons of mined ore, equal to about 5,000-6,000 tons of tin concentrate, stockpiled in the region, while an additional 1,500 tons of tin ore are awaiting clearance at the local port, according to the association.

Benchmark three-month tin prices on the London Metal Exchange were up 0.9% on Thursday, while all other base metals were down.

(By Polina Devitt; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Susan Fenton)

The Securities and Exchange Commission obliges US-traded companies to file so-called conflict mineral reports on whether their products may include gold, tin, tantalum or tungsten from the Democratic Republic of Congo or its nine neighboring countries. The rules, which came into effect in 2014, are meant to help sever the link between the illicit mineral trade and violence in Congo. They were originally part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank act.

“Companies may be reporting incomplete information, or not filing at all, because of a perception that they are unlikely to face enforcement action by the SEC if they do not comply with the conflict minerals disclosure requirements,” the GAO said Wednesday, citing industry sources.

Violence has persisted in eastern Congo for nearly three decades. More than 100 armed groups are active in the region, fighting for land, identity and economic opportunity. Some groups support themselves by selling or taxing minerals. Under the US law, there are no sanctions if a company discovers its mineral purchases supported conflict in Congo; it’s simply required to report it.

Key facts from the GAO report:

• In 2022, 1,005 companies filed conflict minerals disclosures with the SEC, a decrease from 2014, when 1,321 companies filed
• 51% of companies initially determined that their conflict minerals may have come from the DRC or adjoining countries
• 53% of companies that investigated further were unable determine the origin of their conflict minerals
• Some companies are now including cobalt in their filings

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)