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Tin mining revival
BRITAIN’S mining industry was founded on tin, long before coal fuelled the country’s industrial revolution.
Although Cornwall still comes to mind when thinking of tin, the world’s principal producers are currently Chinese companies that include Yunnan Tin, Yunnan Chengfeng and Minsur.
Like copper and lithium, tin is fundamental to the technology sector’s growth and the transition to a lowcarbon economy.
“It has seen very strong price increases since early 2021,” said Richard Williams, chief executive of Canadian mineral exploration company Cornish Metals.
In May 2022 the company announced that it had secured £40.5 million (€46.3 million) in funding which it would use to drain its South Crofty mine in Pool, located between Camborne and Redruth, where production was first recorded in 1592 and continued until 1998.
It will also construct a treatment plant for the mine water and complete a feasibility study.
South Crofty, which has the world’s fourthlargest tin deposit, has now turned up attractive tin grades from newlyexplored areas on the company’s land.
THE Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) warned that Britons faced their worst decline in living standards since records began in the 1950s.
The Treasury watchdog pointed out that they also bore the greatest tax burden since the Second World War.
The OBR added that the economy was on track to shrink by 0.2 per cent this year, despite Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that the UK would avoid technical recession. He would meet debt targets only by a narrow margin after the big childcare outlay and freezing fuel duty, OBR said.
Down to earth
VIRGIN ORBIT, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, has halted operations and furloughed stuff as it seeks a funding lifeline.
“Discovering a new highgrade zone in the middle of a historic mining district is a tremendous outcome, and again demonstrates the exploration potential of the region,” Cornish Metals chief executive Richard Williams said, following the most recent set of drill results.
