Modern Mining May 2021

DFS confirms feasibility of expanding Phase 1 processing plant at Uis

A definitive feasibility study (DFS) has confirmed the feasibility of expanding the current Phase 1 processing plant at AfriTin Mining Limited’s Uis Tin Mine in Namibia, resulting in a 67% increase in tin concen- trate production from 720 tonnes per annum to 1 200 tonnes per annum. Anthony Viljoen, CEO of AfriTin Mining Limited, comments: “Publication of AfriTin’s inaugural definitive feasibility study marks another significant milestone for the com- pany and will lead to the completion of the first phase of development of what could potentially be the biggest open cast tin and technology metal deposits in the world. The DFS confirms the highly attractive economics from a low-cost modular expan- sion of the current Phase 1 at Uis which can be implemented in eight months. The DFS also coincides with the Company achieving its first full quarter of steady state produc- tion at the Phase 1 plant as a global tin prices reach a 10-year high,” he says. The initial JORC (2012)-compliant Ore Reserve estimate over the V1 and V2 peg-

matites, validates the long-term feasibility of this flagship operation at the Uis Tin Mine and emphasises the benefits that the deposit derives from the scalability of the project. Importantly, the reserve only forms a portion of the historically declared reserve that the company is in the process of converting into modern JORC compli- ance standards. “We are especially pleased with the robust economics of the study which pro- vide us with an opportunity to substantially increase the revenue and profit margin of the current operation, while importantly de-risking the expansion of the project into the much larger Phase 2 operation that is intended to be 6 to 10 times bigger than the phase 1 operation,” he says. “While the current estimate only consid- ers tin mineralisation, the company intends to add the potential by-product minerals of tantalum and lithium oxide in due course. Coupled with the exploration upside of both historically mined and unexploited proximal pegmatites, AfriTin has laid a solid founda-

Anthony Viljoen, CEO of AfriTin Mining Limited.

tion for advancing the project towards our long-term goal of becoming a leader in the tin and technology metals mining sector,” concludes Viljoen. 

May 2021  MODERN MINING  7