Thomson Resources reports ‘excellent’ tin results from further assays at NSW project
Better results were 69.5m at 0.5% tin from 60m, including 2.5m at 2.1% tin.
Australia’s tin sector has been struggling in recent years to attract investor interest, but latest drilling by Thomson Resources (ASX: TMZ) at its Bygoo project shows that at least one junior is sticking to its guns when it comes a metal that is increasingly being seen as a technology must-have.
The company has received the last out of four assay batches from the project located in central NSW.
A notable intercept from latest results at the P3801 tin greisen was 26m at 2.1% tin.
Another hole, at the Smiths tin greisen, assayed over 25m at 0.5%.
This latest result coincides with the metal dropping to its lowest level in 18 months, closing overnight at a three-month price of US$22,793 per tonne.
Tin prices hit, but still robust
However, tin’s price almost doubled in 2021 due to demand for it as an application in electronics, solar panels, appliances and other technology sectors.
This latest downturn has affected a range of mineral prices, but tin’s growing importance to technology ensures that the inevitable economic recovery will again mean a squeeze on supply as demand rebounds.
And Thomson’s executive chairman David Williams made the another key point.
“Whilst the tin prices have come off from the highs earlier in the year, they are still significantly higher than two or more years ago,” he said.
Weather hampered exploration program
Wet weather and farming operations ended the 2022 drilling program before it was finished, leaving all five discovered greisens — Main, Dumbrells, Stewarts, P380 and Smiths — open.
The company described the 26m at 2.1% tin intersection at P380 as “exceptional”. The P380 zone appears to sit about 50m north of, and parallel to, the Main zone at Bygoo.
It is named after an historic hole, P380, drilled in 1976 which intersected 18m at 0.5% tin.
The Bygoo project surrounds the major tin deposit at Ardlethan, which was mined until 1986 with over 31,500 tonnes of tin being produced.
There are several early 20th century shallow tin workings scattered up to 10km north and south of Ardlethan, and few have been tested with modern exploration.
In its release today, Thomson said it have been having issues with locating the historic holes at Bygoo as they were drilled in a subsequently cropped paddock.
It suspects that the 1976 hole may have skimmed the side of the mineralised zone, which the company has now identified.