As Alphamin Resources continues reporting excellent results at Bisie, the buoyant tin price could open up room for more tin projects in Africa, although it is still early days.
Alphamin’s Bisie tin project in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is without a doubt in a league of its own and is a hard act to follow for the other two African tin projects, which are both still in the very early development stages. With the tin price hitting the high notes early in 2021, the crushers at Africa’s only substantial tin operation have been humming non-stop. Alphamin reported great production figures for the last quarter of 2020. Moreover, as demand for tin concentrate picks up in response to a worldwide economic recovery after the Covid-19 slump, and on the back of record prices, things are about to get better at Bisie.
Bisie makes headway
Bisie, the largest tin producer in Africa and one of the top producers in the world, had a bumper 4th quarter, despite the rest of the world slumbering in an early year torpor. Currently, Bisie produces 4% of global mined tin and continues to make headway in improving its status as a top tier tin mine.
Tin production at Bisie increased 13% to a quarterly record of 2,898t which is higher than the company’s previous market guidance of 2,600t to 2,800t. According to Maritz Smith, CEO at Alphamin, the improved performance was due to better tin feed grades and plant recoveries.
“The processing plant performed at an average recovery of 74% for the quarter, including a record recovery of 77% achieved in December 2020,” says Smith.
EBITDA for Q4 2020 increased to a record $16,7million, albeit negatively impacted by lower tin sales volumes because of the previously mentioned higher than expected rainfall.
Smith says that Alphamin’s short-term objective is to increase annualised contained tin production from the current level of 11,000t to 13,000t. This increase is expected from July 2021 following the commissioning of the previously announced fine tin recovery plant and a planned increase of 5% in processed ore volumes. “On this basis, we expect contained tin production of 5,500t in H1 2021 increasing to 6,500t in H2 2021, which would achieve our annualised production goal of 13,000t thereafter,” says Smith.
This year Alphamin will embark on several growth projects that will further boost the mines exceptional blue-sky potential. For one, the fine tin recovery plant is expected to start operating by June 2021. The plant is almost 80% complete and has the potential to increase contained tin production by 5%-10%. Another exciting project underway is the exploration drilling at the Mpama South deposit, located only 750m south of the current processing facility.
The drilling program got underway officially in December 2020. To date, drilling has progressed well with the drilling of between 8,000-14,000 metres currently planned for this year with the intention of being able to declare a Maiden Mineral Resource by the end of 2021.
To date, Alphamin has drilled over 5,000 metres (23 drill holes). So far all the holes have shown visual mineralisation which suggests a continuity of the main zone system.
Maritz Smith, CEO of Alphamin, commented on the latest drill results saying, “These drill intercepts are very encouraging for the Mpama South Prospect and point to a possible Mpama North lookalike. We are very encouraged by the resource expansion potential within the existing mining permits. Our view that the 13km Bisie Ridge hosts multiple high grade mineralized systems continues to be reinforced which brings us closer to realising our vision of becoming one of the world’s largest long-life tin producers.”
While Mpama South could provide an opportunity to increase the production rate and life of operations at Bisie, an extension of the life of mine at Mpama North (the current producing orebody) can be confirmed by drilling down-dip and along strike beyond the northernmost holes drilled in the 2014 drilling campaign. A diamond drilling campaign is planned for 2021 from an underground drilling drive (under development) located on Level 6 at Mpama North.
Further, the 14km long Bisie Ridge, hosting both Mpama North and South, has a plethora of anomalous geochemical targets for follow up and lies entirely within Alphamin’s tenements. In this regard, the Company has identified two drill targets for 2021 (in addition to Mpama North and Mpama South).
Manono in the mix?
To illustrate Bisie’s dominant position in Africa, it is worth looking at the only other two projects currently been talked about. ASX listed AVZ Minerals’ Manono lithium and tin project, also in the DRC, has been a stop/start affair for years, but an improved tin price might give the project a boost, although the grade is questionable. AVZ recently announced that the company expects to start construction at Manono in the second quarter of this year. Manono is located within the mid-Proterozoic Kibaran Belt of the DRC about 500km north of the city of Lubumbashi, close to the border between the DRC and Zambia. Lithium and tin mineralisation occur here in Lithium Caesium Tantalum (LCT) pegmatites, between sequences of chlorite schist. The pegmatites are mostly found in the Manono and Kitotolo regions, where primary mineralisation is hosted in the Roche Dure pegmatites of the area. The mine is owned jointly by AVZ Minerals (60%), La Congolaise D’exploitation Miniere (30%), and Dathomir Mining Resources (10%). The contingency cost of the project is estimated to be USD36-million.
The historic Manono Mine was mined for its tin content between 1919 and 1982, during which time a total of 100 million cubic metres of ore were processed to produce 185,000 tonnes of cassiterite concentrate, sourced mainly from eluvial and weathered pegmatite from which was recovered an average of 1,850gm of cassiterite concentrate per cubic metre (g/m3) or approximately 1,330g/m3 Tin. Except for some exploration work carried out on the old mine dumps, aimed at determining cassiterite and spodumene grades, little prospecting has taken place since 1960.
Although Manono boasts a significant deposit of lithium in addition to its tin, getting the infrastructure in place will be a major challenge. Infrastructure in Manono and the surrounding areas is limited. Power is currently generated at the Manono township using diesel generators and a recently commissioned solar power system. Dathomir has agreed to facilitate the rehabilitation of the Piana Mwanga hydroelectric power station and the road from Lubumbashi to Manono. The road is subject to a USD285-million upgrade presently being completed. The project will require 9MW of power, which will be supplied by onsite diesel-fuelled generators. Local fuel storage is also planned to be set-up on-site. Dathomir will rehabilitate the Piana Mwanga hydroelectric power station and water will be supplied from Lake Lukushi’s existing dam.
Alphamin’s Bisie mine, more than 1,500km northeast of Manono, has already dealt with its infrastructure challenges. The mining team at Alphamin spent their first two years hacking a road through the forest and putting the necessary infrastructure in place. Even with outstanding haul roads being established for more than three years, excessive rainfall still causes havoc, as it did towards the end of 2020, when it disrupted Alphamin’s exports. Alphamin reported that sales in Q4 of 2020 decreased by 14% due to extreme seasonal rains impacting export road conditions. Weather stations across the export route reported rainfall above 159% of the long-term mean. However, the short dry-season (Jan-March) allows road maintenance to be done and already road conditions have improved. Alphamin expects to sell approximately 3,200 tons of contained tin during Q1 2021, thereby recouping most of the Q4 sales shortfall.
Further reading
New-normal-investors seek sanity with Alphamin’s Bisie
A question of infrastructure
Alphamin’s infrastructure constraints at Bisie is offset by an extraordinary high-grade (+4%) ore body and product.
Way down south
While way down south in the arid lands of Namibia, road and rail infrastructure are not major concerns for AfriTin’s Uis mine, access to sufficient water resources and how to efficiently ramp up within the next year will be on the to-do list. At an average of less than 1% the grade at Uis could be a concern although, at the current tin price, that would not necessarily be a project killer.
AfriTin has only been producing tin at Uis for a little more than a year. The mine produced about 300 tonnes (t) at the historic mine, despite issues at the beginning of 2020 due to the Covid-19. Production at Uis progressively improved throughout the year though.
So far, 2021 has been a good year for tin around the world. Covid-19 has resulted in a thirst for new technology and tin will play a central role in this development. Bisie is key to a tin revival in Africa. Up until now, it has met all expectations and continues producing better than expected results. Management has overcome the worst teething problems and the mine is well on its way to being a world-renowned tin region. With numerous challenges around the world because of Covid-19 and political instability, Bisie has become a reliable supplier of tin concentrate, and as things stand, will continue to be stalwart in the worlds tin market.
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