Canadian mineral exploration company Cornish Metals is collecting samples for a metallurgical study at its South Crofty project, the site of a former producing tin mine in Cornwall.

Cornish Metals is focused on developing the South Crofty underground tin project through the delivery of a feasibility study.

The South Crofty project is fully permitted, having a mining licence valid until 2071, planning permission to construct a new process plant and a permit from the Environment Agency to dewater the mine.

As part of the feasibility study, Cornish Metals has contracted three drilling rigs from Irish firm Priority Drilling. Two of the rigs are drilling from the surface and one from underground, collecting samples from different parts of the historical mine complex.

“Parent” diamond drill holes will be drilled initially and multiple wedges will be drilled from the parent hole to collect the samples.

The drill programme will cover a minimum of 8,000m.

Samples will be collected for various metallurgical studies, including X-ray transmission ore sorting, flowsheet optimisation and paste backfill studies, as well as collecting assay data to complement the current mineral resource estimate.

Cornish Metals CEO Richard Williams said: “This drill programme allows us to accelerate the South Crofty feasibility study in advance of dewatering the mine and will provide key information for the mineral processing flowsheet, especially the amenability of the mineralised zones to ore sorting which, if successful, will present an opportunity to deliver higher grade feed and reduce the size of a process plant.”

The geology at South Crofty comprises metasediments, or “killas”, overlying an intrusive granite body. The killas typically hosts vein structures, or “lodes”, containing polymetallic copper-tin-zinc mineralisation, whereas the underlying granite hosts lodes that are predominantly tin only.

The granite hosted tin mineralisation is the focus of ongoing work at South Crofty.

Cornish Metals completed the acquisition of the South Crofty tin and United Downs copper/tin projects in July 2016. The additional mineral rights cover an area of approximately 15,000ha and are distributed throughout Cornwall. Some of these mineral rights cover old mines that were historically worked for copper, tin, zinc, and tungsten.

Tin mining in this region dates to 2,300BC. Large-scale production at South Crofty first started in the mid-1600s. The mine has been in operation intermittently since then. The last closure took place in 1998 after a prolonged period of depressed tin prices.

Cornish Metals expects demand for tin to increasingly outstrip supply in coming years, driven by growing demand from the electronics sector, electric vehicles and renewable power, especially solar cells.

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