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eURoPe

New Elementos CEO

rattles the tin

f Joe David was looking to ease himself respective critical development junctures in the market are still in the early explora-
Iinto his new role as chief executive of tin is what really attracted me to the compa- tion stage, so I think we really have found
developer Elementos Ltd, he was in for a ny,” David said. a niche that people can ride on both those
rude shock by the end of his first week in “I haven’t been a tin or hard rock guy, fronts.”
the hot seat. I’ve done most of my time in bulks – start- An economic study completed a year
David officially started his new job on ing in coal and in the last 10 years mostly ago found the Oropesa project – in Spain’s
April 13 and just seven days later he was in iron ore and iron ore infrastructure – but Andalucía region – could be developed
closing an oversubscribed placement for tin is a compelling story right now, you into a low-cost mining operation producing
$6.1 million to complete ongoing drilling can’t avoid the importance of it. 2,240 tpa tin-in-concentrate over a 14-year
and a feasibility study on the company’s “Obviously I’m studying the tin market mine life. Capex is estimated at $US52.2
Oropesa tin project in Spain. day and night and skilling up on my knowl- million, including 20% contingency.
Speaking to Paydirt at the end of his edge of the supply and demand funda- Oropesa is forecast to generate annual
first month at Elementos, David praised mentals. Without digging too deep into the gross revenue of more than $US48 million
the company’s board for laying the against an estimated operating cost
foundations for the capital raising in of $US28 million per year, or cash
the lead-up to his arrival. cost of $US11,800/t.
“The board had a very robust Other key financial estimates
strategy in terms of bringing on a from the economic study were
full-time CEO at a time when there a pre-tax NPV of $US94 million,
were the financial resources for that IRR of 25.8% and payback period
CEO to do what they needed to do of about four years, based on a tin
to mature the company’s projects,” price of $US19,750/t.
he said. “It was an exciting project to eval-
“My first day was a Tuesday and uate when I was going for this role
we closed the capital raise the fol- and it’s probably only more exciting
lowing Monday, so I got the joy of now as I’ve stepped into the role
quite a busy first week, but that’s and into the detail,” David said.
how these jobs go and I’m enjoy- “It’s open-cut, in what we believe
ing the challenge. The board cer- is a good mining jurisdiction and it
tainly wouldn’t have brought me on has room for growth. The economic
to plan the critical workstreams we Joe David study was done at a much lower
need to complete unless they had tin price than we’re currently look-
done all the groundwork to get that capital tin market drivers, you can see people are ing at…so purely from an economic point
raise completed successfully. now clearly realising the gross undersup- of view it has the ability to be potentially
“The placement was substantially over- ply of this critical metal and the strong sup- a lot more profitable than we’ve previously
subscribed, which I believe demonstrates port for future supply.” been able to inform the market with.”
both the strength of the tin market right At the time of print, LME tin prices were Last month the company was more than
now as well as the market’s strong interest trading at 10-year highs of more than 70% into a 48-hole drilling programme at
in the two projects we’re currently develop- $US34,000/t on the back of supply disrup- Oropesa with plans to re-estimate the ex-
ing.” tion and strong demand driven by global isting resource of 9.34mt @ 0.55% tin for
David joins Elementos after four years economic stimulus. 50,910t as soon as possible thereafter.
running his own project consultancy com- Only a year ago the LME tin price was A four or five-hole drill campaign is also
pany. Prior to that he was providing con- $US13,500/t. likely to begin at Cleveland in the next
sulting services to a wide range of devel- David said the institutional and sophisti- quarter as the Elementos team seek to
opment projects for the likes of Flinders cated investors who supported the recent identify further mineralisation along strike
Mines Ltd, BBI Group and Salt Lake Pot- capital raising had recognised Elementos at the Tasmanian project.
ash Ltd. as being one of the few pure tin players in “Here we’ve got a decent looking tail-
With experience in both project delivery the marketplace. ings resource, we’ve got a likely open pit
and corporate finance, David has been “Investors seemed pretty happy to resource and an underground resource,”
tasked with progressing Oropesa towards get on to our tin train because we’ve got David said. “It’s probably going to take a
the BFS phase, as well as undertaking a growth exposure in two directions, with not combination of a least two of those three
review of the various development options only the tin price but value accretion as our resources to feed a single development
on the table for the Cleveland tin project in projects move through development and story.”
Tasmania. into operation,” he said.
“The fact these two projects are at their “A number of the other pure tin players – Michael Washbourne

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