JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based Strongbow Exploration has applied for a listing on London’s Aim exchange, which it hopes will help it to raise £25-million in the next 18 months to progress the South Crofty mine, in Cornwall, to a production decision.
The owner of the South Crofty underground project near Pool and Camborne said on Monday that it expected its shares to be admitted in June. For now, the company would also continue to trade on the TSX-V in Canada.
“The project has all necessary permits in place, and, as a former producing mine, offers great potential at a relatively low risk,” CEO Richard Williams said of the South Crofty mine that operated for more than four centuries and was closed in 1998.
Dynamics in the tin industry have changed in recent years, which make the UK’s last tin mine viable yet again. Since 2016, tin prices have increased by 60% and are currently at about $21 000/t.
Williams said that Strongbow was targeting production to start in 2021.
The company is currently constructing a water treatment plant, which will be completed by the end of October, at which stage dewatering of the mine will start.
A February 2017 preliminary economic assessment estimates that South Crofty will have an after-tax net present value of $128.2-million and an internal rate of return of 24%. The preproduction capital expenditure of $113.6-million will be repaid in 3.8 years.
The lower mine tin-only indicated resource of the project is estimated to be 1.66-million tonnes at 1.81% tin and the inferred resource to be 0.74-million tonnes at 1.91% tin.