First Tin: Near Term Catalyst with a Ready Buyer for a multi-year, multi-bag
First new tin project in a stable regime in years is almost shovel ready
Today we are going to be talking about Tin: The Other, Other White Metal™.
Now before you skip this article, let me get you excited with a chart:
Did that get your attention?
You would have been better off buying tin than Gold, Silver, or Platinum.
This article is a bit of a deep dive as I needed to inform myself on the tin market before I even considered putting money into it.
If you are educated about Tin, feel free to skip the first part of this article that lays out everything you need to know about the tin market and jump to the First Tin specific content below.
So, let’s get into why Tin prices have been in an epic bull run that you didn’t know existed and how you can profit from it.
Tin is one of the world’s oldest industrial metals. Certain historians claim that the Roman invasion of Britain was due to the vast reserve of tin in Cornwall.
Yet, for most investors, tin barely registers on the commodity radar, even though it is one of only six metals that trade on the London Metal Exchange.
The market is clearly small, with just $8 billion in annual value, making it invisible to many institutional players.
This obscurity, however, masks a compelling structural investment thesis.
Tin has been undergoing a fundamental shift from cyclical commodity to strategic critical mineral.
What makes this moment particularly compelling is the convergence of three powerful forces: structural undersupply with no relief in sight, growing governmental recognition of tin as a critical mineral for defense, AI, electrification, and clean energy, and only a handful of viable projects in low-risk OECD jurisdictions capable of bringing new supplies to market.
First Tin has two world-class projects positioned to become operational precisely when the market will desperately need them, and a strategic partner who is experienced in the Tin trade.
The History of Tin: Understanding the Commodity
Tin is the 49th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, representing 2 ppm compared with 75 ppm for zinc, 50 ppm for copper, and 14 ppm for lead.
Geographically speaking, Tin is not present in a homogenous way across the world.
There is no primary tin production in North America and very little in Europe with most of the primary production coming from countries with questionable political and future supply situations.
Tin’s history as an industrial metal spans millennia. Archaeological evidence suggests tin mining began around 3500 BC in Turkey, where the metal proved transformative when alloyed with copper to create bronze AKA the Bronze Age.
For thousands of years, tin’s primary application was as an alloying element, delivering hardness and durability to weaponry, tools, and decorative objects.
This application remained dominant through the medieval period and into the industrial revolution.
However, tin’s true emergence as a modern commodity occurred over three separate use cases.
Initially, Tin’s primary use in the early 20th century was as Tin plate. It was a revolutionary product that prevented steel from corroding. The first thing most people think of when it comes to this metal is Tin Cans. The reason why they became so ubiquitous was due to this product.
As world manufacturing expanded after WW II, tin was a key ingredient in all forms of industrialization including construction, automobiles, consumer appliances, and the nascent electronics industry, which all relied heavily on tin-based products.
However, the real moment of growth came in the late 20th century as tin’s use as a solder in electrical components became the main use of the product.
The lead-to-tin transition drove a structural increase in tin consumption.
Unlike the previous cycles, which were episodic, this shift was regulatory and permanent.
Demand for solder-grade tin surged and as worldwide electrical and computing needs grew into our current AI boom, so did tin demand.
Yet tin supply struggled to keep pace, failing to grow proportionally.
The Current Environment
Since approximately 2011, global primary tin mining production has stagnated at around 250,000 tons annually, with the remainder of supply coming from recyclers.
As you can see from the chart below, 2/3rds of the world’s tin production comes from only three countries: China, Indonesia, and Myanmar.
The remainder comes from some great investment locations like the “Democratic” Republic of the Congo. Very little supply comes from any OECD nations.
Meanwhile, tin demand is forecast to rise steadily due to all the factors I discussed above and explored in more detail below.
This stagnation in mining growth reflects a geological and economic reality in that most remaining ore bodies are lower-grade, more complex to extract, and require higher capital intensity than legacy operations.
The easy tin has been mined. What remains is difficult, expensive, and concentrated in geopolitically unstable or logistically challenging regions. There is a reason why in spite of a record bull run in tin, very little new supply as come on the market.
Now, let’s add a little spice to this story.
As we know, China is in the process of controlling rare earth exports. They alone could juice the market by withdrawing or limiting exports at any moment.
Myanmar is always one day away from another political coup (with one currently ongoing).
This supply stagnation against persistent demand growth has created a structural deficit. And this is where people who like Weird Shit (apologies to Swen Lorenz for stealing this phrase) get really interested.
Understanding Tin’s Uses and Demand Evolution
Global tin consumption currently is spread amongst the following use cases.
▪ Solder (50%): The dominant application, used in all electronic devices
▪ Tinplate: (10%): Coated steel for food/beverage containers.
▪ Chemicals: (16%): Including PVC stabilizers, polymer additives, and mobile phone components
▪ Copper alloys (8%): Bronze and other tin-copper alloys
▪ Batteries (8%): Lead-acid batteries and emerging battery technologies
▪ Other: 8%
Of these applications, solder represents the anchor demand driver, accounting for just over half of all tin consumption.
Tin’s dominance in soldering reflects technical and economic properties that have no viable alternatives.
Tin possesses several unique characteristics that make it the preferred choice.
It has a low melting point, high electrical conductivity, malleability, ductility, and is cost effective.
Alternatives exist but suffer from prohibitive cost, inferior reliability, or manufacturing complexity. There is no real substantive substitute for tin.
EV’s require approximately three times the amount of tin as a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle. This reflects the vastly more complex electrical architecture in EVs, with hundreds of solder joints distributed across battery management systems, power inverters, charging interfaces, and onboard computing.
The explosive growth in artificial intelligence and cloud computing has created unprecedented demand for data center infrastructure.
Data centers require extensive solder joints in server boards, networking equipment, and cooling systems.
Solar panels rely on tin-based solder for ribbon connections between cells.
For the reasons above, Tin is now designated as a critical or strategic mineral in many countries.
The Supply Crisis: Why New Mines Cannot Grow Fast Enough
Global tin production is highly concentrated geographically.
Four regions account for 75% of global primary production: China: 31%, Indonesia: 21%, Myanmar: 14%, Africa (primarily DRC, Nigeria, Rwanda): 9%
The remaining 25% is scattered among secondary producers in South America, other Asian countries, and a handful of other regions.
Critically, North America (United States and Canada combined) produce zero tin from primary sources. Europe produces negligible quantities.
This supply concentration creates both economic and geopolitical vulnerabilities. The U.S. and allied nations depend almost entirely on hostile or unstable jurisdictions for tin supply.
Myanmar’s political instability, Indonesia’s regulatory unpredictability, and China’s use of export restrictions as a geopolitical tool all create supply security concerns that have driven policy interventions like the US-Australia Critical Minerals Framework, which is one of the key reasons First Tin is my preferred way to play this coming tin crisis.
What makes global tin supply particularly vulnerable is not just geographical concentration but also the deterioration of production methods at major mines.
Historically, tin was mined from high-grade, easily accessible deposits using underground mining or onshore alluvial methods. These sources are now depleted.
Indonesia exemplifies this deterioration. In 2006, state-owned PT Timah produced 45,000 tons of tin. By 2025, production had fallen to just 21,000 tons, a large decline despite years of technological advancement. The decline reflects the simple fact that all the high-grade ore has been mined. What remains is lower-grade alluvial material and, increasingly, offshore dredging operations, which you saw a picture of above.
China’s situation is even more severe.
Globally, approximately 34,000 tons of new annual tin production capacity is projected to come online by 2026 according to industry estimates.
Macquarie forecasts that worldwide stocks will be depleted some time in 2027.
So why is the world not panicked to date with this upcoming tin crisis?
Because for nearly four decades the market was sustained by an unusual and ultimately misleading buffer: the steady liquidation of the International Tin Council’s 50k+ ton stockpile and the drawn-out release of the United States 350k ton reserve, a process that quietly concluded in 2021.
This long-running overhang created a deeply entrenched belief that supplementary supply would always materialize.
However, this artificial abundance had a second-order effect that it depressed prices to levels at which funding new tin mining became uneconomic.
As a result, exploration capex collapsed, project pipelines evaporated, and the major mining companies systematically withdrew from the sector resulting in a generational underinvestment in the tin market, which leads us to where we are today.
Hopefully, now you can see why tin prices have only been going up and I can stop beating this dead horse.
So Why First Tin?
Corporate Overview and Shareholding Structure
First Tin PLC is a London-listed (LSE: 1SN) tin development company advancing two flagship projects: Taronga in New South Wales, Australia, and Tellerhäuser -Gottesberg in Saxony, Germany.
The company is 100% focused on tin and operates with minimal corporate overhead.
The company stock is also tightly held by a few insiders.
The company is backed by experienced resource investors (Baker Steel), strategic industrial partners (MetalsX, Australia’s largest tin producer), and European industrial investors.
Critically, MetalsX, which owns 29.91%, provides strategic credibility and potential synergies for tin marketing and financing and a ready partner to exit to.
MetalsX Chairman Peter Gunzburg and Executive Director Brett Smith are also members of First Tin’s Board.
Taronga Tin Project, Australia: The Shovel Ready Project
Project Overview
Taronga is First Tin’s flagship asset and the company’s path to near-term production.
Located in northeastern New South Wales in the Emmaville tin district, a historically significant mining region with a century of tin production history, Taronga offers a combination of geological, geographic, and geopolitical advantages that are rare globally.
Resource Base
The Taronga project area contains measured and indicated mineral resources of approximately 138,300 tons of tin, one of the largest undeveloped tin resources in the OECD world.
Notably, Taronga is believed to be just one component of a much larger tin district, with several satellite deposits and exploration targets identified in the near vicinity.
First Tin has applications pending for two additional exploration licenses adjacent to Taronga, designed to expand the project’s resource base and extend mine life.
Taronga’s geology is unusually favorable for tin mining.
The deposit consists of coarse cassiterite (tin oxide) mineralization outcropping on a ridge at the surface. Unlike many tin deposits, which are fine-grained and require complex processing, Taronga’s coarse cassiterite allows rapid separation through crushing and gravity (a cheap standard off-the-shelf processing plant).
This simple mineralogy and a 1:1 (one-to-one) strip ratio are the foundation of the project’s low capex and low-cost profile. Most open pit mines have much higher strip ratios of 2:1 to 6:1, which necessitate a lot more cost.
Taronga, as a result, will be developed as an open-pit mine with no underground work required with an expected capex of ~$180M AUD.
In short, this resource is easily strip mined and then separated without a lot of expense.
In terms of value, in May 2024, First Tin published a comprehensive Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for Taronga, representing the culmination of several years of engineering, metallurgical testing, and permitting work.
The DFS results are exceptionally strong with an approximate pre-tax NPV of AUD $420M (£207M) at current tin prices of $37,000/ton.
The AISC (break even cost) for the mine is around ~$16,000 a ton which is obviously way below (over 50%) current spot pricing.
I won’t regurgitate the rest of the report, but please do read it to get comfort around this project.
Finally, the path to production is progressing on schedule with several major milestones achieved or imminent.
The expectation is that the mine will receive final development approval from the Australian authorities in mid-2026 and will be on production by Q4 2027 or H1 2028.
Australia-US Critical Minerals Framework
Key provisions relevant to First Tin include:
Financing Commitments
▪ Both the US and Australia commit to deploying at least US$1 billion in financing within six months of the agreement’s signing
▪ An $8.5 billion pipeline of critical minerals projects has been identified for potential financing
▪ EXIM Bank has already issued letters of interest for seven Australian critical minerals projects
▪ Export Finance Australia (EFA) and EXIM have established a Single Point of Entry (SPE) for coordinated financing of critical minerals projects
Tin is explicitly identified as a priority mineral in the framework given its criticality for defense systems, renewable energy infrastructure, and semiconductor manufacturing.
With the support of both the US and Australian government, this takes out a key risk of First Tin not getting non-dilutive financing to develop its mine.
Keep in mind.
This company has a market cap of £$38 Million with no debt.
The Taronga Project alone is worth £207 Million without even taking into account satellite field development or its projects in Germany (more on this below).
Several satellite targets around Taronga have been identified with demonstrated surface tin mineralizations.
If even one satellite deposit reaches the resource definition stage with grades/sizes comparable to Taronga, it could extend the district’s mine life from 11 years to 15-20+ years, materially enhancing project NPV.
And more critically, this project is one of the only few new tin projects in a politically stable jurisdiction ready to come on in short order.
So with the near term plan of Australian development, let’s discuss the even larger project First Tin is permitting in Germany.
Tellerhäuser and Gottesberg
While Taronga represents First Tin’s near-term production opportunity, the Tellerhäuser and Gottesberg projects in Saxony, Germany represent the company’s longer-term value creation catalyst. These projects are less advanced than Taronga but potentially larger and positioned in a strategic jurisdiction with strong governmental support.
Tin at the Heart of European Manufacturing
Saxony is the historic center of European tin mining and maintains substantial unextracted mineral wealth. The Tellerhäuser-Gottesberg district is surrounded by Germany’s high-tech manufacturing belt, making it strategically vital for European supply chain security. Europe currently produces negligible quantities of tin (virtually all European production is recycling) and depends entirely on imports, primarily from politically unstable or geopolitically unreliable sources.
Germany has explicitly designated tin as a critical mineral and is actively promoting domestic production as part of its Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) strategy.
This creates a uniquely favorable regulatory and financial environment for European tin development.
Project Scale and Resource Base
The Tellerhäuser Project has a Measured + Indicated Resources of 138,600 tons of tin.
Unlike Taronga, this is going to be a much more complicated development, entirely underground.
The Gottesberg Project is a little further behind in terms of development and is undergoing drilling to determine its resource base.
A critical distinction between Tellerhäuser-Gottesberg and many other tin projects is the substantial byproduct metal potential.
They are both polymetallic deposits with primarily tin but also byproducts of magnetite, zinc, indium, silver, copper, germanium, and gallium which are all critical metals.
Byproduct revenue from these metals could contribute 25% of total project cash flow, enhancing project robustness.
The project is currently undergoing Mining Authority approval process.
Germany’s permitting process for mining is lengthy but increasingly streamlined for critical mineral projects. This project is one of the largest undeveloped tin projects in continental Europe, so Germany and the Saxony region are clearly motivated to help this company succeed.
First Tin’s also benefits from multiple European support initiatives including potential EIB financing and National German Government support due to Tin being a critical mineral.
Conclusion
First Tin offers compelling exposure to two new tin projects in stable jurisdictions with near-term production potential at Australian Taronga, and longer-term optionality in Germany.
It has a mining team with large-cap execution capability supported by strategic partner MetalsX Limited, Australia’s largest primary tin producer and a significant shareholder.
It has incoming US-Australia government financing that should be non-dilutive.
This stock seems ready to rerate in 2026 once permitting is fully completed.
With a conservative market cap well below the estimated project NAV, First Tin stands out as a strategic play in this new white gold.
Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into tin. Leave me a comment below if you found this article helpful or interesting.
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Great writeup. Already own it (fractional position because of the lack of liquidity), along with much larger positions in MLX.ax and AFM.v. You might want to consider Elementos (ELT.ax) which is also partically owned by MLX.
Superb write-up, thanks for sharing. Will put it in our Best Stock Pitches newsletter.