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7
August 2024
First Tin
Plc
("First
Tin" or "the Company")
New Taronga Mineral
Processing Testwork Shows Plus 75% End-to-End Tin Recovery from a
Higher-Grade Sample
First Tin PLC, a tin development
company with advanced, low capex projects in Germany and Australia,
is pleased to announce that new mineral processing testwork at its
Taronga Tin Project ("Taronga") in Australia suggests better
recoveries than those previously reported and used in the
Definitive Feasibility Study ("DFS").
Highlights include:
· Crushing recovery of 91.2% of contained tin
· Coarse
gravity circuit recovery of 82.9% of gravity feed tin
· End to end recovery of 75.6%
tin to a 66.7% Sn concentrate
This testwork follows the current
processing facility design.
The crushing recovery of 91.2% of
contained tin, previously reported on 25 April 2024, combined
conventional and 1st pass vertical shaft impact ("VSI")
crushing from a high-grade bulk sample with head grade 0.15%
Sn. The coarse gravity circuit concentration recovery on this
material of 82.9% is significantly higher than the previously
reported 71.5% recovery from a low-grade sample (head grade, 0.10%
Sn).
In parallel testing, recovery of an
additional 4.0% of starting tin to a 71.4% Sn concentrate has been
obtained from a 2nd pass through the VSI followed by
coarse gravity circuit processing. This shows the potential
value of adding a second VSI to the circuit, which will be
investigated as part of the DFS optimisation work.
A 4.5% recovery of starting tin to a
14.0% Sn concentrate has also been obtained by initial testwork on
a fine tin circuit. While no fine tin circuit is currently
proposed at Taronga, this testwork indicates the potential
additional recovery and such a circuit could be added at a later
stage.
First Tin CEO, Bill Scotting
commented:
"The results of this testwork are
very encouraging and confirm the readily treatable and upgrading
nature of the Taronga mineralisation. Recoveries of over 75%
tin from a higher-grade sample to a high-quality concentrate from
the simple, coarse gravity tin circuit are much better than the
recoveries used in the recently announced DFS. Potential for
even higher recoveries can also be seen with slight modifications
to the current process plant design. It is proposed to
collect more samples to repeat this work and confirm these
excellent recoveries."
Details of the work are shown below:
A bulk sample of approximately 300kg
was collected from an adit through the main part of the Taronga
mineralisation. The average grade of this sample is 0.15% Sn,
slightly higher than the proposed average grade of mineralisation
to be processed at Taronga (0.13% Sn).
Coarse Gravity Tin Circuit
The undersize from the conventional
crush and the 1st pass VSI was re-combined and put
through the following simple coarse gravity testwork
procedure:
· Screen
at 0.4mm
· Oversize (0.4mm to 2.75mm) sent to jigs
· Jig
concentrate ground to 0.4mm and re-combined with the screen
undersize
· Combined undersize classified using a cyclone to remove the 20
micrometre fraction
· Underflow is sent to the spiral circuit
· Spiral
concentrate is cleaned up using shaking tables
· Shaking table concentrate is re-ground to 150 micrometres and
sent to sulphide flotation circuit
· Sulphide flotation circuit removes sulphides to
float
· Sulphide sinks (tin concentrate) are cleaned up using a Mozley
shaking table
This is shown schematically in
figure 1.
![A screenshot of a computer screen Description automatically generated](https://dw6uz0omxro53.cloudfront.net/3134141/c1e03f58-cc27-4234-bd7a-d5609d19b05d.png)
The coarse gravity circuit
concentration recovery of 82.9% is significantly higher than the
previously reported 71.5% recovery from a low-grade sample (head
grade, 0.10% Sn) and will be further assessed by assaying the tail
streams. The improvement may also be due to the presence of
significant coarse cassiterite in the sample, as was reflected by
the better liberation characteristics at the crushing
stage.
Second Pass VSI
Crushing testwork was conducted by
ALS Burnie. They used a jaw crusher to reduce the
mineralisation to 100% passing minus 12mm and then screened the
material at 2.75mm, with the oversize (2.75mm to 12mm) material
sent to Gekko for a two pass VSI scavenging crush. Results
for the 1st pass VSI were previously announced on 25
April 2024.
Results of the 2nd pass
VSI work show that:
· The
2nd pass VSI product (-2.75mm fraction after passing the
first pass oversize through the VSI a second time) contains 6.0% of
the tin in 14.5% of the mass.
· Combined with
the previously reported 91.2% recovery from the conventional
crushing and 1st pass VSI, implies a total crushing
recovery of 97.2% of the starting tin in 58.6% of the mass grading
0.24% tin
· The
rejects (plus 2.75mm fraction) contain 2.8% of the tin in 41.4% of
the mass.
The 2nd pass VSI product
was then put through the same coarse tin circuit testwork as the
main sample. Due to the low 0.06% Sn head grade of this
sample, it was anticipated that recovery would be low.
However, recovery through the
gravity circuit was shown to be 66.4%, with potential to recover
more from the mids, which are grading 13.7% tin and contain 12.9%
of starting gravity feed tin. It has been shown by testwork
on the main sample that most of this can be
recovered.
The testwork is shown schematically
on Figure 2.
![A diagram of a company Description automatically generated](https://dw6uz0omxro53.cloudfront.net/3134141/7a10933b-a06f-4bfe-b91d-cdf806714a8b.png)
Thus, coarse gravity circuit
recovery from the 2nd pass VSI sample is similar overall
to the coarse gravity recovery from the main sample.
As the gravity feed from the
2nd pass VSI only contains 6.0% of the starting tin, a
66% recovery for this fraction implies a recovery of 4.0% of
starting tin.
This is a significant result as it
shows that by simply adding a second VSI to the circuit, an
additional 4% recovery can be obtained. It also shows that
coarse gravity circuit recovery from very low-grade samples is only
marginally lower than from high grade samples and thus that
recovery from Taronga's mineralisation may only be weakly grade
dependent.
Fine Tin Circuit
The tails from the coarse tin
testwork generally contain very fine grained cassiterite, and hence
additional testwork was aimed at recovering some of the fine
cassiterite that is going to tails. This work consisted
of:
· Classification, consisting of cyclone separation and screening
of underflow at 53 micrometres followed by recombination of
overflow and minus 53 micrometre underflow
· Falcon
separation
· Falcon
concentrate de-slime using cyclones
· Sulphide flotation to remove sulphides to float
·
Cassiterite flotation to produce a
low-grade concentrate for re-combining with the high-grade coarse
gravity circuit
This is shown schematically on
Figure 3.
![A screenshot of a diagram Description automatically generated](https://dw6uz0omxro53.cloudfront.net/3134141/77f8f5dc-aa7e-4c43-a651-b8d39090b345.png)
While no fine tin circuit is
currently proposed at Taronga, this testwork obtained a recovery of
4.5% of starting tin to a 14% concentrate which shows that it is
possible to recover the fine tin and hence this circuit could be
added at a later stage to improve overall recovery. Work is
currently ongoing to try to reduce the arsenic content of the fine
tin concentrate, although overall arsenic would be within
acceptable limits once blended back into the main coarse tin
concentrate.
It should be noted that minor
sampling and assay errors associated with coarse nuggety tin and
low-grade mineralisation make reconciliations difficult, and hence
minor inconsistencies can be seen in the above balance
sheets. To overcome this, multiple splits and assays of all
tails and product streams will be undertaken during the next round
of test-work as part of the ongoing DFS optimisation
work.
Enquiries:
First Tin
|
Via
SEC Newgate below
|
Bill Scotting - Chief Executive
Officer
|
|
Arlington Group Asset Management Limited (Financial Advisor
and Joint Broker and Bookrunner)
|
|
Simon Catt
|
020 7389 5016
|
|
|
Zeus Capital Limited (Joint Broker)
|
|
Harry Ansell / Dan Bristowe / Katy
Mitchell
|
020 3829 5000
|
|
|
SEC
Newgate (Financial Communications)
|
|
Elisabeth Cowell / Molly
Gretton
|
07900 248 213
|
Notes to Editors
First Tin PLC is an ethical,
reliable, and sustainable tin production company led by a team of
renowned tin specialists. The Company is focused on becoming a tin
supplier in conflict-free, low political risk jurisdictions through
the rapid development of high value, low capex tin assets in
Germany and Australia, which have been de-risked significantly,
with extensive work undertaken to date.
Tin is a critical metal, vital in
any plan to decarbonise and electrify the world, yet Europe has
very little supply. Rising demand, together with shortages, is
expected to lead tin to experience sustained deficit markets for
the foreseeable future.
First Tin's goal is to use
best-in-class environmental standards to bring two tin mines into
production in three years, providing provenance of supply to
support the current global clean energy and technological
revolutions.