Atlantic Tin has announced the results of a scoping study incorporating the company’s newly-acquired SAMINE processing facility near their Achmmach tin project, Morocco.
The company announced in late-May that it had entered into an agreement to acquire SAMINE, which holds a mine and exploitation licence between Atlantic Tin’s Achmmach and Bou el Jaj licences, and an existing processing facility 7 km from the proposed Achmmach underground mine. The integrated Achmmach-SAMINE scoping study highlights a lower capital cost for the company, payback in 4.3 years, and a reduced construction time of 18 months.
Atlantic Tin CEO Simon Milroy commented: “This scoping study clearly demonstrates the synergies of combining the Achmmach Tin Project with SAMINE’s infrastructure. Having access to the existing processing plant and infrastructure at SAMINE results in a substantial reduction in the initial capital cost required to bring the project into production when compared to a stand-alone greenfield project development at Achmmach only.”
While substantial infrastructure is already in place, the SAMINE mills require refurbishment to process the 500 ktpa ore feed rate, and a gravity plant will be added. When the company expands production to 900 ktpa, additional milling power will be required and both the gravity and pre-concentration circuits will be duplicated. The use of the SAMINE site will also reduce the surface footprint impact, compared with constructing a new facility and associated infrastructure.
Following successful testing completed in 2023, the company plans to include dense medium separation and ore sorting in the pre-concentration circuit, to achieve pre-concentration recovery of 87%. An overall processing recovery rate of 72% is expected over the 17-year mine life.
Pre-production capex is estimated at US$54 million, plus expansionary capex in years 2 and 3 of US$28 million. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) will average US$66 million per annum and peak at US$88 million, yielding a post-tax cashflow over the life of mine will average US$51 million during years 2 to 16.
The company has defined an average all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of US$15,368 per tonne tin, placing the project in the lower half of ITA’s cost curve.
Our view: ITA is pleased to see accelerated progress at Achmmach, with very limited new supply set to come online before 2030. The integration of the SAMINE processing facility into the Achmmach project improves the project economics and potentially brings the mine closer to production. We look forward to seeing Atlantic Tin’s updated definitive feasibility study, which is currently underway.
