Yunnan Tin Details Expansion Projects

BEIJING, Feb. 22 -- China's Xinhua news agency has reported more details of the investment projects being carried out by Yunnan Tin Company, which it is financing through a RMB 1.4 billion (US$200 million) rights issue announced last month. YTC will increase its tin mining and smelting capacity as well as expanding its lead smelter and building a new copper smelter.

The planned increase in tin mine production will come from the Wuchangping project in Chenzhou, Hunan. The 1,500 tpd mining and dressing project has already completed construction, and is expected to reach full capacity this year. It is designed to produce 1,388 tonnes of tin-in-concentrates and 3,993 tonnes of copper-in-concentrates per year. Tin concentrates will be supplied to the company's tin smelter in Chenzhou, while the copper concentrates will be sold on the domestic market. There is also a potential second phase which would lift ore capacity to 3,000 tpd. If this goes ahead, the mine will be able to produce nearly 3,000 tonnes of tin-in-concentrates per year. Currently, the mine has a resource of 48,900 tonnes of contained tin at an average grade of 0.635% tin, but YTC hopes this can be expanded to 100,000 tonnes.

Both of the company’s tin smelters at Chenzhou and Gejiu are being renovated and expanded, which will give them annual refined metal capacities of 20,000 tpy and 70,000 tpy respectively by the end of this year. In addition YTC is expanding its lead smelter at Gejiu from 20,000 tpy to 100,000 tpy. This project started construction in September 2009 and is scheduled for completion in May 2010. It is also to construct a 100,000 tpy copper cathode project in Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2011.