Good morning, and welcome to the First Tin Plc interim results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated in the right-hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives in the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Bill Scotting, CEO. Good morning to you, sir.
Right. Thank you, Alessandro, for that introduction. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to this presentation of our interim results for 2023. This morning, I'm joined by Tony Truelove. He's our Chief Geologist and Chief Technical Officer. Tony's sitting in Australia. Good evening, Tony. This page here, the disclaimer, I have to just point that out to you, draw your attention to it. I'm certainly not going to read through it in this presentation. Page two, you have here our agenda for this morning. I'll first provide an overview of the business and an update of the macro environmental factors as they relate to tin. Tony will then walk you through an update on progress at our two key assets, Taronga in Australia and Tellerhäuser in Germany.
I'll then run through a simple update of the finances for 2023, before outlining our priorities for the current calendar year. There'll be a brief summary and then we'll have a Q&A session. Moving along, if we turn to the business update on page three there. I'm happy to say over the reporting period, we made significant steps forward at both our assets. Importantly, in doing the work, there were no accidents or environmental incidents reported. At Taronga, we made significant progress in preparing the project's definitive feasibility study. The updated MRE that was published provided for a 240% increase in total resources for the project to 138,000 tons of tin.
Mineral processing test work advanced, and we reported that the mineralogy enables significant grade beneficiation at the crushing stage with a simple and cost-effective gravity-based mineral processing flow sheet. The deposit is amenable to open pit mining with a low one to one strip ratio. The work on energy options identified a solution comprising 10 MW behind the grid, solar power plus gas generators to be both cost-effective and environmentally friendly by lowering our CO2 footprint. Exploration work at our nearby satellite prospects have validated our thesis that Taronga is part of a broader tin district. This provides the strategic potential to develop a hub-and-spoke system around the processing plant in the future. At Tellerhäuser, the focus of activity has been on reviewing and assessing the large amount of additional historic drilling data discovered in the archives in Freiberg.
This drilling data is from old Wismut uranium exploration drill holes, and includes analysis on tin. We anticipate publishing an updated MRE for Tellerhäuser in coming weeks. Tony will shortly provide more detail on the progress of these assets. As a junior miner undertaking exploration and development, there's not so much to report on the financial side. The interim results reflect the continued investment by the company in progressing our assets through their permitting and feasibility study work. A loss of GBP 2.82 million was posted for the period, and we ended the period under review with a cash balance of GBP 4.6 million. Turning to the macro, on page four, you can see the recent strengthening in the tin price.
It started the year around $24,400, excuse me, and has relatively steadily climbed to over $28,000. With this, tin has reportedly outperformed other base metals since the start of the year. We see a few tailwinds developing for tin. It ended the year with relatively low demand and supply, but also with low stock levels. Global semiconductor sales are on the up after a cyclical low last year, with sales reportedly up 15% year-over-year in January and growth of double digits forecast for 2024. The EV market continues to grow as does solar, while AI is boosting the broader electronics sectors. Those tailwinds are consistent with the general theme of climate change and the digital transformation, that are driving demand for tin.
Here you see the midterm forecast from the ITA, which is very positive and suggests tin demand will approach 500,000 tons by 2030. Given that around 50% of tin, is used in solder to act as the glue in electronics, this should come as no surprise. The climate agenda is driving the energy transformation, and we see continued strong growth in solar, which benefits tin from its use in solar ribbons, junction boxes and electronics. EV penetration continues to grow, with tin benefiting in the EV itself at 1.2 kilograms, more than double that used in the older technology, as well as its use in the charging stations. Finally, more broadly, growth related to other electronics such as 5G, data storage all require more tin.
The real beauty of tin is that while 50% is used in solder, that solder is itself used in multiple sectors and applications. The key ones are all growing. The other 50% of tin is also used in multiple applications, none of which exceeds 16%. That diversity means tin is not overly reliant on any one sector or driver, unlike with some other metals. With the demand outlook continuing to strengthen, on page six, you can see that the supply chain risks grow. On the left-hand chart, you can see global tin mine production over the past decade. With a few ups and downs, the trend is basically flat. Investment from existing producers is simply required just to sustain output due to grade dilution, reserve depletions.
The further issue is that supply is quite concentrated with nearly two-thirds coming from just three countries, China, Indonesia and Myanmar. With material volumes also coming from the DRC and Latin America, only 3% is coming from OECD jurisdictions. Given the tens, even hundreds of billions of investment in technology and fabs, these concentrations only increase supply chain risks in a world that has become more fractured, and geopolitically less stable. As page seven highlights, these supply side constraints were already felt in 2023, the year under review. Despite cyclically lower demand, inventory continued its long-term declining trend due to various outages felt around the world. You can see some of those on the right-hand side. Around 3% of supplies forecast were being lost last year due to a variety of causes from social to political, environmental, war, conflict and corruption.
Without new supply, the deficit will grow and ultimately cause price fly ups. With that, overview of the macro, I'll hand it over to Tony now to take you through an update on the progress at the key assets. Tony, the floor is yours.
Thanks, Bill. As already noted by Bill, tin supply is quite restricted geographically, with only a few deposits located in OECD countries. Of those, First Tin owns two of the large ones, Tellerhäuser in Germany and Taronga in Australia. Taronga is arguably the most advanced tin project in the world at the moment, and we believe it'll be the next deposit to be put into production. Taronga is located in northeastern New South Wales, about 370 km by road from Brisbane, and thus has excellent logistics. The recent drilling and resource remodeling, has increased the resource by 240% to 138,000 tonnes of tin, making this one of the largest undeveloped tin resources worldwide outside of China and Russia. The deposit is unique in that it's mineable by open pit.
One of the few known tin deposits, that fit between the historically dominant alluvial deposits, which are now generally running out of reserves, and deposits that need to be mined via underground techniques. This, combined with the very low strip ratio of around one to one, means that mining costs will be very low compared with deposits mined underground. We expect our total mining costs will be less than AUD 4 per ton or $2.60 for every tonne moved. With a one to one strip ratio, that means that we'll be lower than AUD 8 or $5.20 per tonne, including the mining waste. While underground mining would be close to 10 times that amount. The other unique feature is that tin occurs in sheeted veins. There's approximately 20 per meter.
These are subvertical veins composed of quartz, cassiterite, a few sulfides, mica, and a bit of topaz and fluorite. They're in a very hard, dense host rock, known as a hornfels or a silicified metasediment. What that means is that the rock tends to break on those veins. By crushing to around about 10 millimeters, we release 85% of the tin into the minus 2.8 millimeter fraction in only about 55% of the original mass. That means that there's a lot less mass going forward, and that can easily be separated using gravity techniques at a very low cost. This slide shows our proposed mine layout. You can see two open pits that are located on topographic highs, which help the low strip ratio.
There are two waste rock emplacements adjacent to the pits, and a co-disposal site for dry storage of tailings. The only wet sulfide tailings facility that we have, you can see in the very far north of the deposit. It's a little, looks like a map of India up in the very north. That means that we don't have a lot of problems that you might normally have with wet tailings facilities. While there's a power grid within a few kilometers of the site, our current aim is to power the site using behind the grid with a combination of solar panels and gas generators. In the far south, you can see that blue patch.
That shows where the solar panels and gas generators will be located. As crushing is our largest power draw, we intend trying to crush during daylight hours. That means we can use solar power for much of the crushing, and it also means that there'll be less noise at night for anybody in the surrounding district. This concept will result in power costs, being approximately half those that we would be paying for grid power and saving us over 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This slide shows a picture of the rock. The bottom picture, you can see it's broken along one of the veins. You can see quite a few of the veins up in the top picture. As it breaks, it releases the cassiterite.
As I've already mentioned, we only need to crush to 10 mm and screen at 2.8 mm, and we get most of the tin out. That's. A lot of people are doing this in tin using ore sorting, which is quite expensive, both as far as CapEx and OpEx goes. We don't need to do that at all in our deposit. After crushing, processing is dominantly gravity separation, and it's quite a simple circuit. The plus 0.3 mm material goes to a jig, and the minus 0.3 mm is separated out, using the cyclone to get rid of the very fine material and then straight through spirals.
The first grind is after volume has been reduced to less than 20% of the original mass, and hence we can have very cheap processing costs. Even then, it's only required to reduce the material, to around about 0.3 mm. Final cleanup is via grinding the pre-concentrate, which is very low mass at that stage, to 0.15 mm, followed by sulfide flotation to remove any sulfides that are in there. This produces a +40% tin concentrate, that is subsequently cleaned up or dressed to +60% tin, with total recovery of over 70% for the gravity circuit and +60% all up. Taronga is only one of several similar-looking tin deposits in the Emmaville District. That district's historically produced over 83,000 tonnes of tin concentrates.
We've recently completed a soil sampling program over Taronga, which I don't believe hadn't been done before. That has enabled us to have a comparison for other deposits in the district to identify extensions and satellite deposits and to ensure that no mineralization occurs in areas we plan to use for infrastructure, or rock placements or tailings. The map to the right shows several other deposits within 20 kilometers of Taronga, that could all add either mine life or production profile. Some of those soil anomalies are very similar in size and magnitude to Taronga itself. Moving on to Tellerhäuser. Tellerhäuser is located in East Germany, near the city of Dresden. It's less advanced stage than Taronga, but it's a much higher grade deposit that will require underground mining.
Thus overall cost, we think, will be similar per tonne of tin produced to the Taronga deposit, even though it's almost 10 times the grade. Work in 2023, 2024 has concentrated on Taronga, but Tellerhäuser has still been advanced on several fronts. In particular, data mining, with numerous additional drill holes being located in old East German archives. Adding this data to our database, revising the mineral resource estimate and progressing permitting. Drilling conducted in 2023, has shown the deep mineralization at Dreiberg continues well beyond the indicated resource outlines, as you can see from some of those intercepts in the middle table. We've also done a few holes at Gottesberg, that have shown excellent potential for near surface, very good grade mineralization.
As you can see there, 73 meters at 0.5% tin and seven meters at 1.5% tin. Some of the new data is shown on the attached plan of Hämmerlein. The red dots you can see there are new data, and you can see that that's the big thick dots are greater than 0.5% tin. A revised resource estimate is currently being prepared, and should be available next quarter using this new data. I'll now hand you back to Bill.
Great. Thanks very much, Tony. That's, I think, you know, being new to the company and looking at the history last year, I think there's great progress indeed over that period.
If we turn now to the financials, on page 18, we have an extract from the financial report. As a junior mining company, as you know, we currently have no income, and the company meets its working capital requirements through the raising of development finance. The interim results for the period reflect the continued investment by the company in progressing these two assets through the permitting and the DFS study. We posted a comprehensive loss for the period of GBP 2.82 million pounds rather, not dollars, and ended the period with a cash balance of GBP 4.66 million pounds and a net asset value of GBP 38.97 million pounds.
Expenditure during the period was primarily focused on drilling activities to extend the MREs, the mineral processing test work, and other DFS and permitting work related to progress the development of the assets. I think it's well known, it was published last year that we'll probably need to raise additional capital of some shape or form within the next 12 months in order to continue to fund, the developmental activities at the level that we plan. I'll give now a brief summary and outline the priorities going forward. On page 20, you see our current priorities. At Taronga, finalization of the DFS is top of the list. As we have heard, it's a lot of work has been undertaken over the past many months and is now being finalized and put together.
Also at Taronga, we'll continue some groundwater drilling, which is underway and expect to complete it shortly. Beyond the DFS, completion of the EIS is the other major piece of work underway, with a completion targeted in quarter three this year. Finally, we hope to progress the assessment of the potential of the various satellite deposits that Tony has just mentioned. At Tellerhäuser, finalization of the MRE update that Tony mentioned from the assessment of the Wismut data is top of the list. It's as with the Taronga DFS, this is almost complete, and we hope to report an update in coming weeks. Beyond the MRE work, we continue to work with the mining authority for the approval process, and also on some of the requirements for the progression of the environmental permits.
Tellerhäuser also has potentially attractive satellite licenses, which Tony described, and we'd like to explore those further. For both sites, we will progress discussions ongoing on financing. The next slide is a reminder of our core values and vision. Our aim is to provide assured provenance, traceable, and ESG compliant tin units into a growing market that needs it. In doing so, we want to live our values and priorities on the ground each and every day. To conclude, I've only been in this role just under three months, but I've been impressed by the progress made by the year under review. Solid foundations are in place to take these two attractive projects forward.
The outlook for the tin market is positive due to the structural shifts underway, with tin increasingly recognized as a critical and strategic metal for the energy transition and digital revolution. These conditions present significant opportunities for us as First Tin. Our projects, strategically located in safe, compliant jurisdictions of Australia and Germany, ideally position us to capitalize on the opportunity that is before us. We believe there is a quick de-risk path to production of these assets due to their location, established infrastructure, established reserves, and simple mineralogy. Taronga is arguably further advanced, with its impressive grade beneficiation and simple and cost-effective flow sheet design that Tony articulated. Previous scoping studies on these deposits suggested robust economics at $25,000 tin price with significant leverage to higher tin prices.
With today's tin price at circa $28,000, I'm really looking forward to seeing the outcome of the DFS work. This concludes the formal presentation. With that, we'll have some time for some questions. Thank you for listening.
Perfect. Bill, Tony, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab, which is situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received questions throughout today's presentation. Bill, if I could just hand over to you just to chair the Q&A by reading the questions out, that'd be great, and then I'll pick up from you at the end.
Thank you, Alessandro. Okay. On my screen here, I have one from Christopher T. And Christopher is asking, "What initiatives are you undertaking to increase the use of renewable energy in your operations, and what are your overall targets for sustainability metrics?" Maybe Tony, do you want to give a response to that?
Sure. As I mentioned in my presentation, we have decided that the crushing circuit in our processing facility is by far the largest power user. By oversizing the crushing and only crushing during daylight hours, we can use a significant amount of solar power. We're looking at installing around about 10 MW of solar power, and backing that up with gas-powered generators, so that we will be totally behind the grid. We are also examining at the moment an option to supersize our renewable power. We do own 25 sq km of freehold land, in an area that has a lot of sunshine and a good wind profile. We're currently considering whether to actually hook into the grid and have a much larger renewable power farm there.
That will lower our costs yet again. Obviously, the CapEx will be a lot higher, but there are people out there who are willing to fund these and sell the power back to us, especially as we have the landholdings available to do that.
Yeah. Thanks, Tony. I'll just add that on the solar in Australia, we expect just by operating the way Tony said with the crushing, that the overall site power use coming from the solar could be around 53% of the total demand, and that's even with solar efficiencies taken into account. That's already a significant thing. Looking at another question. This one is from Terry. It's quite an interesting one. I think I feel the pain of some people here. The share price was in the 30s after the IPO. Why is it so low with very little retail interest and liquidity? Terry, I don't pretend to understand all the movements of the share price.
What I think I've seen here is that, you know, tin prices do impact on the share price of tin players. The same in a lot of metals. It's not unusual. I believe tin had a very high price peak a couple of years ago, and it's come down quite considerably from that, and was at quite a, you know, 50% of that at the end of last year. It's now recovering. As I said, the outlook for tin, I believe, is very strong on the demand side and the requirements for new supply, and that is normally supportive of tin prices. That will also be supportive, I believe, of shares for those working in the tin sector.
As to retail interest and liquidity, that's a complex question. You know, I think at different times in the cycle, people move in and out of sectors. Last year was a relatively low year for demand. There's a lot of geopolitical uncertainty. The share prices are low, not just our company, but our peers have also similarly suffered to different extents. I think people wait for a catalyst. I think the approaching deficits, you know, I read people are interested in that. One can only, I think, hope that, as the projects progress, as the tin macro situation evolves, that will be supportive of share prices. Got another question here from Christopher. Given. It's a good one.
Given the advancements and investments in the Taronga and Tellerhäuser projects, how do you prioritize resources and decision-making between these two projects, especially when considering the different stages of development and the unique opportunities each project presents? It's a great question, Christopher. When I was coming into this role, that was one of the key things that I was thinking about at the time. As the months have passed, what's become apparent is that these projects, which were earlier on at relatively similar stages of development, have now separated in terms of their momentum and progression. You heard from Tony as to the situation in Taronga. We're very close to finalizing the DFS. We're well advanced on the permitting, and the test work and the flow sheet and so on.
The work that's done looks very positive and we'll see when the DFS comes out, what some of the implications of that are. Situation in Tellerhäuser is a little bit different. It's further behind. We've not spent as much money there, not spent as much effort there. However, the work that has been done, particularly on analyzing the old drill holes, is extremely valuable. You know, we talk about drilling costs and so on. The costs of data mining, are incredibly low compared to drilling the holes. The beauty of the area was that in the former GDR, with Wismut, there was a tremendous amount of drilling that was done, and the change in legislation has allowed us access to that data. It's a big task.
Thousands of kilometers of drill hole and data, which we're populating our model and filling out. That work continues on. We don't have to take many decisions on that at the moment. We don't have to take many decisions at the moment on Taronga until they get the DFS. As you're balancing cash flow, and you're looking at the requirements, you're thinking about route to market, the challenges, the probabilities of passing through certain, decision gates at certain times. It's a constant balance. You take your decision when you get material new information. I hope that's cleared up that question. Got another question here. Okay. It's from Tom.
And he says, "With tin's role in cutting-edge technologies such as electric vehicles, AI, and renewable energy, how is First Tin adapting in the wake of these technological advances? Is the company currently involved in any research or collaborations to develop or optimize usage in these applications?" Yeah, a really good question, Tom. Look, at this stage, I would say we don't do a lot. It's too early for us. We're. You know, we have limited resources. Our focus of our scarce shareholder funds is taking these assets forward. However, having said that, we're part of the ITA. The ITA as an industry body do research and you know, looking at the impact of these technologies going through. Where it becomes practical is in things like in Taronga.
When we think about what is our energy solution, we're looking at some of the technological advances. In solar, how can we use that in our facility? How does that benefit us? Of course, when you're doing all the data modeling, the geostats, the statistical analysis, things like that, you're using the advancing technology available to the geologists, as part of that and also in the mine planning. You're practically using these advances in taking the business forward. Since I've been here, I've had a couple of discussions with people who are involved in very early research in new technologies of using tin, in, for example, some battery uses, which is really leading edge.
Met with them, understood their tin needs and what that means for the future. In terms of proactively doing something, there's not much we can add to that at the moment other than to bring tin units to the market. Another question here. One from Albert. "Metals X produces 10,000 tons per year. A Chinese investor owns 50% of Metals X, leaving 5,000 tons per year to public investors. How does Taronga compare to Metals X?
Bear in mind that Metals X market cap is AUD 200 million." I think before I hand this over to Tony to maybe give a couple of comparisons in terms of the deposits and what they're doing, the key point there is, you know, they are an operating asset delivering tin into the market. We are a junior developer bringing two new assets into the market. That's, I suppose, the key difference at a public level. I'll hand it over to Tony to maybe give some more on the difference between Taronga and what Metals X are doing.
Yeah. Thanks, Bill . First off, our current production predictions for Taronga are between 3.5 and 4,000 tons of tin metal per year. We're getting up there. If you add in some production from Tellerhäuser on top of that, we will be above the 5,000 tons per year that Metals X is producing in its own right. The main differences are, apart from the fact they're already in production, Renison is an old mine. It's very deep. Their mining costs are, I would imagine, I did see them a while ago. I'm not sure what they are today, but they're in the order of AUD 80-AUD 100 a ton, compared with less than AUD 10 for ourselves.
Their processing costs, are also quite high because it's very complex and sulfide rich, whereas ours is very, very simple. I think that's a very good question, Albert. Yeah, we certainly should be a lot closer to the GBP 200 million market cap, I think, than we are at the moment, especially once we get into production.
Thank you, Tony. I'll look forward to your forecast coming through on that latter point. I've got a question from Marcus here. Thanks for these questions, by the way, everyone. There's some really great ones here. "The Australian government's recognition of tin as a strategic material presents new opportunities and possibly challenges. How do you anticipate this recognition will affect your operations, regulatory environment, and market positioning?" Yeah. That's a good one. Look, I think the first thing is, it's great that the government recognizes it as a strategic material. I think in Australia, and maybe Tony in a minute can add, his thoughts being based in Australia what that means.
In general, we've found around the world, where tin gets designated as a critical material, it shines a light on it and makes your discussions with the regulators, makes your discussions with the mining authorities easier. People recognize the materiality of it and the need for the projects to progress. It doesn't mean that you can shortcut things. You've still got to pass through the normal hurdles. You can look for support as you do that, I would say. Maybe Tony, if you have any thoughts on the Australian situation.
Yeah, thanks. I've been talking to the government over the last year or so, putting in proposals that tin should be a critical mineral in Australia. I guess we got partway there with a strategic mineral. We did get a critical minerals grant from the New South Wales Government, and that was around about AUD half a million. I think putting tin as a strategic material will open up opportunities for further grants down the track. The Taronga deposit is classed as a State Significant Project in New South Wales, which does make it in some ways easier, in some ways harder to get permitted. Overall, I think it's actually makes it. It might make it more difficult in the short term, but you're more certain to get there.
I think making tin a strategic mineral will certainly help us down the track as far as both permitting and as far as potential grants go.
Yeah. Thanks very much, Tony. Got another question here from Terry. "Thank you for your early answer." Good. "I'm sold on the business case for First Tin." That's great. Thank you, Terry. Terry is a significant shareholder, so great that you're on the call here and showing the interest involvement. The question is, his question is that the last three months, the daily volume is almost zero. And asking: What are you doing on a weekly basis to engage institutional interests, given that you acknowledge the need to raise funds going forward? Yeah, very good questions, Terry. What do we do? We do have every week, actually, I'm thinking about what we can publish in terms of news and information, new information on the business, what we're doing.
We have bi-weekly planning meetings around the communication and what we can publish as a public company. I've also, before I joined, I joined the booth at an event here in London where a number of institutions, financial providers, people came up and discussed with my predecessor and myself about the business. I have had various conversations. The general theme coming back from people like that is that one, they want to see the DFS. It's hard to really progress discussions with the institutions without having the DFS because it has to go through various hurdles with them.
That's why my focus so far in the last two to three months has really been pushing and working with the teams to get the DFS done and to get the MRE update done in Germany, because those are material pieces of news. They're material things we can put out to the market. On the basis of that, we can engage with shareholders more strongly about the story. Off the back of those, we can then talk about fundraising and our needs and what comes next. That's been the focus till now, as well as trying to keep an information flow going. You know, I check the trading volume every day. I check it amongst our peers, other companies. What we're experiencing is not unusual.
I've noticed in the last probably two weeks that the volumes have gone up maybe 30%-40%. Still, in the big picture, not a big number. I'm with you there, Terry. I think we have to deliver the DFS, deliver the MRE, and get news out there, as we take the discussions forward.
Perfect. Bill, I might just jump in there as I think you've actually managed to answer every question from investors today. Of course, the company can review all the questions from today, and we'll publish those responses out on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors, I'll provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company. Bill, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?
Sure. Thanks, Alessandro. Thank you very much everyone for listening, for participating as well with the questions. Really value that input. Just very briefly, I think you've heard the story from me. We're making progress, I think good progress on the ground. The tin structural story gets better as we go forward and can only get better in my view. I believe the company offers something quite unique. We've got two assets which are high value, high potential value, relatively low capital assets, and they've got existing infrastructure. They're in OECD-based jurisdictions with supply security, which I think is important. As such, we provide critical mineral exposure to the energy and digital transformations. Once again, thank you very much and I wish everyone a good day and a good evening. Thank you.
Perfect. Bill, Tony, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors now to close the session, as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of First Tin Plc, we'd like to thank you for attending.