News
Elements’ tin and copper exploration advances
Paul Sanger: I’m Paul Sanger from the Finance News Network and today we’re talking to Elementos. Elementos, trading under the ASX ticker ELT with a market capitalisation of approximately £35m, is committed to the safe and environmentally conscious exploration, development and production of its high-quality tin projects. Elementos has two world-class tin projects with large mineral resource bases and significant exploration potential in mining-friendly jurisdictions. Today, we’re delighted to have with us the MD of Elementos, Joe David. Joe, welcome back to the network.
Joe David: Good morning, Paul. It’s always good to be back with you.
Paul Sanger: Let’s get straight to the point, Joe. The company has previously released an announcement detailing more high-grade tin and copper intersex from its Tasmanian Cleveland project. Can you tell us about these new results?
Joe David: Yeah, hey, well, the published results speak for themselves. We have five feet of 1% tin and interestingly, almost 4%, 3.8% copper at about 350 meters. It contains a high-grade intercept within that, which is 1.9% tin and just under 8% copper. So some pretty high grades of tin and copper there, which is pretty exciting for us.
Again, I’ll just emphasize to everybody, this is an opportunistic mineralization that we’re intercepting. The target that the drill holes that are planned for us still remains below. We’re drilling our tungsten resource and our tungsten expiration target has been previously defined by the company, but what we really want to understand a little bit more. So where the drill holes are currently at about 650 meters, which is where we expect to intercept this tungsten mineralization and I think we’re starting to see the side of the signals that we expect to see as we move forward on this.
So again, these results are great, they’re opportunistic. They certainly show that there’s more tin and copper than is currently available at the project, and from what geologists are seeing right now, it certainly looks like this tin and copper is representing a new lens or suite of mineralization that we haven’t previously known about. So again, there’s a lot of potential here for us.
Paul Sanger: So what I’m hearing here, Joe, is that these results point to a new zone of mineralization, right?
Joe David: Yes, exactly. So we’re drilling on the other side of the hill from most of the historical drilling and this was specifically designed to get the right angle as we go down into this tungsten below the defined tin and copper resource. So as we drill from that location, we’re drilling through a lot of rock and a lot of soil that has not been explored previously. And on the way down, this is our second intercept of material that we’ve now reported to the market, the first being 9.7% copper with some pretty high grades of gold and silver as well. This was about 111 meters from surface.
So we come to this copper-tin intersection at 350 meters. This is much more similar to the mineralization that we have within the rest of the defined copper-tin resource, but again, it’s a new zone and it’s a new piece of mineralization that we didn’t know about previously. And while I say it’s at 350 meters, critically for us, it’s only 150 meters laterally from the old underground workings that exist in Cleveland. So theoretically, accessing this new area of mineralization is not as expensive as it would seem from surface.
Paul Sanger: Sounds very encouraging. And what do these results mean for the continued development of the Cleveland project?
Joe David: Yes, so we’re sticking to the original plan for the drill hop, which is to go down into that tungsten and better define that ore body. But I think what’s very clear is what we’ve always known, but now we can say that the market is, there’s a lot of upside exploration for Cleveland both in the tungsten that we’re going for, and in the copper tin near surface.
So the next thing we’ll do on completion of this hole is to do some downhole geophysics, downhole EM. This is a very proven technique in these types of mineralizations to define some additional targets. So this will give us a sort of 360-degree reading around the hole and wherever we have some significant sulfide material, we should get a very good signature. Obviously, that signature basically tells us where any follow-up drilling, the direction it should be pointing.
Paul Sanger: I’ll take this opportunity to talk a little bit about tin. The price of tin continues to reach multi-month highs, I think it’s currently trading at $34,500 per ton. What’s your take on the current price of tin and how it affects the viability and economics of your projects?
Joe David: Well, to be clear, it’s a good price. It’s a good price for both of our projects. If both of our projects were producing right now, we believe we would be highly profitable.
The economics of our Oropesa project in Spain, which as you know is our main deposit, all the technical work was done at about $30,000. So to get almost $5,000 above that if we were producing, is significant. The economics of that project already look good at around $30,000. So $35,000, that’s fantastic. Same thing here in Cleveland.
Now, we haven’t published any formal studies, so I can’t necessarily reference them, but this was a project that was operating when tin prices were below $10,000. So now having tin prices around $35,000 is certainly a good boost for a feasibility study or a scoping study when we get around to doing this in Cleveland as well, so it really lends support.
Now, the drivers for this, I think the drivers are very clear. The world is struggling to supply enough tin to the market and finally all the data points are starting to align. We had some mixed messages between China and the London Metals Exchange, but now, everything is aligning. Both inventories are reducing, both on the London Metals Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange, as well as there are multiple reports of supply challenges coming from the major producers, the major producers being China itself, which is the leading producer of refined tin.
So you have Myanmar, which is the second largest miner, and then you have Indonesia, which is the largest exporter. Combine that with some reported conflicts on the eastern side of the DRC, where a good amount of tin comes out of Central Africa, you have an almost perfect storm to drive up the price of tin and I think we are seeing the beginning of what could be a pretty substantial run on tin.
Paul Sanger: So, in short, what you’re telling me is that the way forward for the price of tin is for it to be stronger for longer?
Joe David: Certainly, from the data that we’re seeing, but I’m not an expert on commodity forecasts, but I’m certainly happy with the trend that we’re seeing right now.
Paul Sanger: Obviously, there’s a lot going on with both projects. Can you give investors a little insight into what to expect in the coming months?
Joe David: Yes, so at Oropesa, where we are fully focused on resubmitting our primary licenses, still on track to do so by the end of Q3. We are also progressing towards delivering DFS by the end of calendar year 2024.
So Spain, as discussed earlier, we have taken all the data off the ground, which is at that stage of approval and completing the DFS. So we are very eager to do that.
In Cleveland, it’s kind of a wait and see. We’re going to get to that tungsten. We’re really hoping for some very large tungsten intercepts down there. And basically when we get out, as I said, we’ll do some geophysics and then we’ll make a decision on the next step whether we’re going to go into more in-depth exploration in Cleveland to better define those targets or whether we’re going to start pushing this through the study phases. Both exciting on both projects.
Paul Sanger: Joe David, thank you very much for your time. It was a pleasure, as always.
Joe David: Thank you, Paul, I appreciate it.
Paul Sanger: Have a great day.
Ends