REG - First Tin PLC - New Taronga Mineral Processing Testwork

First TinAnnouncement

07/08/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 4385Z  First Tin PLC  07 August 2024

 

 

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 1(st) 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 2(nd) 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 1(st) 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.

 

 

 

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 1(st) pass VSI were
previously announced on 25 April 2024.

 

Results of the 2(nd) pass VSI work show that:

 

·     The 2(nd) 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 1(st) 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 2(nd) 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.

 

 

 

Thus, coarse gravity circuit recovery from the 2(nd) pass VSI sample is
similar overall to the coarse gravity recovery from the main sample.

 

As the gravity feed from the 2(nd) 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.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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