First Tin (LSE:1SN) — Final Results

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to the FIRST TIN PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged, they can be submitted at any time by the q and a tab situated in the right 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 received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Bill Scotting, CEO. Good morning to you, sir.

0:30 Good morning. Thank you, Alexandra, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to this presentation of our results for the eighteen months to the end of June twenty twenty four. This morning, I'm joined by Tony Truelove, our chief geologist and chief technical officer. Only sitting in Shanghai at the moment, so good evening to you Tony. Good morning. The first page is the usual disclaimer which I'd like to just draw your attention to. On Page two here we have the agenda for this morning. I'll first provide an overview of the progress made in the business over the past eighteen months and a brief update of the macro environmental factors as they relate to TIN. Tony will then walk you through an update on the progress at our two key assets, Tauranga in Australia and Telehousing

1:23 in Germany. I will then run through a simple update of the finances before outlining our priorities going forward and we'll conclude with a Q and A session. So first to our business highlights on page three. Over the reporting period we achieved significant milestones at both our assets. Importantly, there were no accidents or environmental incidents reported. We're early in the development of our assets, but it's important we set the right culture on on the health and safety factors.

1:58 At Taronga, the definitive feasibility study was published last May, which confirmed Taronga's potential as a low CapEx, low risk, and high margin tin mine with attractive economics and significant NPV upside potential. The updated MRE that was published provided for a 240% increase in total resources for the project, 238,000 tonnes of tin, which shows the scale of the deposit. Furthermore, exploration work at our nearby satellite prospects has validated our thesis that Tauranga is part of a broader tin district. At Telehauser, the focus of activity has been on reviewing and assessing the large amount of additional historic drilling data discovered in the archives in Freiburg.

2:46 As a result of this work, we published an updated MRE with a 35% increase in resources to 138,600 tonnes of tin. As a junior miner undertaking exploration and development, there is not so much to report on the financial side. The audited results reflect the continued investment by the company in progressing our assets through their permitting and feasibility study work. A loss of £3,900,000 was posted for the eighteen months period and we ended the period under review with a cash balance of £1,300,000 Most importantly, post period end, we've raised £10,000,000 in cash through two placements. Concurrent with the first placement, Metals X, Australia's largest TIN producer, acquired Clara Resources 23% stake becoming our largest shareholder.

3:43 Turning to the macro environment on page four, you can see the strengthening in the TIN price. It started the year around $24,400 tonne climbing to over 35,000 US dollars in April, the highest in almost two years. The second quarter of this year saw relative stability in the 33 to 35,000 range before a downturn in prices in early July which was largely due to weak macroeconomic indicators coming out of China which saw funds and speculators turn somewhat bearish. TIN prices then rebounded to above 30,000 US dollars again where they've remained since although still with some volatility due to mixed macroeconomic signals.

4:28 TIN has been the best performer across the base metals complex over the course of the year. However, the broader macroeconomic context remains complex due to mixed signals particularly from The US and China which has somewhat confused metal markets and intensified price volatility. Inflationary pressures are easing with some interest rate reductions coming through which may allow an improvement in consumption and manufacturing activity which would support continued TIN growth.

5:00 Despite these macroeconomic uncertainties, TIN demand has been recovering from relatively weak 2023 with the ITO forecasting apparent demand to increase by around 3% in 2024. On a regional basis, the growth is coming from China and East Asia, so Japan and Korea, plus some modest growth in North America. This is more than offsetting weakness in Europe. You can see here the forecast by sector courtesy of the ITA. After twenty twenty three's declines in most sectors, almost all consumption sectors are experiencing growth in 2024. Solars are doing well with a strong recovery in global semiconductors and continued growth in EVs and solar.

5:46 Chemicals and tinplate markets are also forecast to grow by 58% respectively due to support in China and The US. While the demand outlook continues to recover and strengthen, on page six you can see that supply chain constraints continue. The issues in Indonesia and Myanmar have been well covered in recent months and both countries are forecast to have production materially down in 2024. The losses in Myanmar and Indonesia have only partially been compensated by growth in Africa primarily from the expansion of Empower South and in Peru which has recovered from some of the social political disruptions last year.

6:29 Overall, the ITA is forecasting a circa 7% reduction year on year in mine output in 2024. As the chart shows, mine supply has been quite stagnant for some time now.

6:45 So with demand recovering and structurally growing but with supply stagnant, the need for new TIN Pines is apparent. And with that, I'll hand it over to Tony to update you on our two exciting projects. Tony? Thanks, Bill. So, yes, as, Bill's, pointed at, the world clearly needs more TIN, and that's been very evident at the, ITA conference that I'm currently attending in, Shanghai. So we've got the world's fourth largest resource base for TIN with nearly 310,000 tons of contained TIN. So the projects are also located in safe jurisdictions in Australia and Germany, which we feel is important for supply chain security, reliability, traceability, comp compliance.

7:40 At Taronga in Northern New South Wales, we've got a 138,000 tons of contained TIN resources, including 52,000 tons of proven and probable reserves. In Saxony, in Germany, we've got another 139,000 tons of contained TIN at Tallahassee. It's a very different base there. It's polymetallic resource, and it's also got magnetite, zinc, silver, and importantly, Indian credits. So at the nearby Goddessburg deposit, there's a further 33,000 tons of contained tin.

8:20 So Taronga is, we believe, going to be the world's next, tin mine. It's got a it's our flagship project, and it's a a low risk asset in a low risk jurisdiction. So the DFS has confirmed that Taronga will be highly attractive. It's got low CapEx, low cost, low tech, low risk, and high margin. The geologists provide a very large resource base in a mineralogically simple coarse grained ore body, amenable to low cost, low risk, bulk open pit mining with a very low strip ratio and easy grade control. So the simple mineralogy means that TIN occurs as coarse grained cassiterite in narrow quartz veins with a low rock strength within a harder Hohmfels hoist rock.

9:12 Natural fracturing along these veins enables very rapid liberation of the cassiterite and hence subsequent rapid volume reduction and grade enhancement using only basic crushing and gravity separation. Trong is also located in a historic TIN mining district in Northern New South Wales, which lowers permitting risk, CapEx and OpEx. We've already received water rights allocations and clearance with respect to native title, two very important aspects. The scoping report's been submitted for the environmental impact statement, and we received CEERS on, earlier this, year. That's the, secretary's environmental assessment requirements, and that will inform what we need to do for the next stage of environmental permitting.

10:07 So we're that should enable completion and submission of the environmental impact study early next year. All being well, we remain on track for potential permitting approvals next year. So these natural endowments make for a highly attractive project. So starting on the left, you can see that pretax NPV at a TIN price of 30,000 US dollars is 243,000,000 Australian dollars. So that's we see is just a starting point. We can see a lot of low hanging fruit that we consider as significant upside. Recovery improvements and conversion of inferred resources within the current pit design brings up an optimized NPV of $345,000,000 Australian at a still conservative US30000 dollars TIN price.

11:06 So further upside from infill and expansion drilling will add to the mine life and improve economics even further, And we plan to do that drilling later this year and early next year. Beyond that, there's further identified opportunities from brownfield expansions, which I'll talk about shortly. So this slide shows we have a very competitive cost base due to the simple open pit mining, low strip ratio, and easy processing, which translates to a very healthy margin. Our c one cash cost is 12,000 US per ton, and all in sustaining costs are just under $16,000, which puts us in the lower, 50% and probably close to the lower 25% of cash costs worldwide.

12:05 So there's a few comparisons you can see on the right there. We've compared ourselves with AlphaMint and Metals X, and we're in between those two as far as all in sustaining cost goes. And we're we're very close to, Metals X as far as cash cost per ton.

12:27 So the beauty of, Tauranga is that its geographic location is is on a on a steep ridge, And that's why we've got such a low strip ratio, which is basically one to one. And you can see the topography on this cross section on the right hand side there. That's the thin black line. And the final pit outlines marked in heavy black. We've put a picture of the Tower Of Big Bend there for scale. You can see the the colors within the blocks represent the grade of mineralization. So you can see it's almost 200 meters through width in in the section that we've shown here. So apart from the low strip ratio, the other beauty about this deposit is mineralogy.

13:21 So we figure we we convince that mineralogy is king for TIN mineralization. So the mineralization is all within

13:30 sub vertical sheeted quartz veins. Consider it's very coarse as you can see on the left hand picture there. And when you crush the rock, you can see that it tends to break along those fractures. And that the reason for that is the the veins themselves have a much lower rock strength than the very hard, salacious Holmfels host rock.

14:01 So based on on that, mineral processing test work has shown that if we start with 5,000,000 tons per annum of about point 13% TIN, after the crushing, we can lose half of that tonnage. So so that goes straight to waste, two and a half million tons. The other two and a half million tons goes through to the next stage of processing. And you can see there the grade's almost doubled already. Next stage is screening, and we just don't do anything else apart from screen the minus 0.4 millimeter material. And the the plus o point four goes straight to a jigging circuit, and that removes another 1,500,000 tons at very low grade, leaving us with only 200,000 tonnes at a grade of 1.4%, which is then recombined with the undersize, taking us to about a million tonnes at nearly half a percent TIN.

15:05 That's, rapidly reduced yet again by a mix of cyclones and spirals. Leaves us with only two around 200,000 tons of 18% tin that needs to be dressed.

15:24 So the sorry. As well as the the resource and reserves that we've already got, we've done some regional exploration including soil sampling. As you can see on the top left hand picture, there's several zones of plus, 1,000 PPM TIN, and that's marked in purple. Several of these zones have the odd drill hole in that has got economic grades of 10. So we plan to drill, most of these zones in the next, twelve to eighteen sorry, in the next twelve months, to increase the the resource base significantly.

16:17 In addition, we used a a very, conservative recovery formula for our pit optimizations, which resulted in an average 54% recovery formula. The the consequence of doing that was, that we probably didn't optimize the pitch properly. And when we reoptimized it at a high recovery, the pitch certainly pulled deeper and wider. So we plan to redrill some of the inferred resource within the pit and ran the pit and reoptimize. Oops. Sorry.

17:05 So the, we'd see Tauranga as not a standalone deposit. If you have a look at the middle of picture there, you can see Brisbane, my hometown up on the, top right hand corner in yellow. And you can see that there are three major tin fields in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland, Stamthall, Emmerval, and Tinga. We've been focused on Emmerval. And as you can see from the photo, the picture on the left hand side, there is some very significant lookalike projects to Taronga. The sole sampling of McDonald's, Tim Beetle, and Pan Flat are very similar, and some of our drilling and some previous explorers drilling have returned very similar results to what we're looking at there.

18:01 In addition, we've recently acquired a large portion of the Southern Tinga tinfield. And if you look at the figure on the right, you can see that the all the yellow there is alluvial tin. The green is deep lead tin, and all the red dots are hard rock tin. This area has been a prolific producer of alluvial and deep lead tint, but very little work's being done on the on the hydro potential. So we've got nearly 300 square kilometers of ground there now. Finally, I'll just say a few words about Telehauser. While we've been focused on Tauranga, we still believe that Telehauser is an excellent asset.

18:49 It's currently, going through permitting, and it's as you can see, it's a very large system. You you might just be able to read the scale bar on the top left hand figure there, which is a a two kilometer scale bar. So you can see the deposits almost five kilometers long and several 100 meters wide. It is, however, a narrow tabular type body as you can see on the cross section underneath, and it dips down so that in in the deepest parts, it's around about a kilometer below surface. It is however much higher grade, and as I mentioned earlier, has very good credits of indium, zinc, silver, and iron.

19:37 In addition, we've got the Goddessburg project, which is about 35 kilometers to the west of Tallahassee, as you can see in the, top right hand picture. And you can see that, at Goddessburg, we have drill intercepts of over 70 meters at around half a percent TIN. And there's a lot of work, we plan to do there to get that as our third project.

20:08 Thank you. I'll now hand you back to Bill. Okay. Thanks very much, Tony. I think great progress indeed over the period, particularly in Tauranga. So if we now turn to the financial statements. On page 19, we've got an extract from the audited financial report. As a junior miner, we currently have no income and the company meets its working capital requirements through raising developmental finance. Results for the eighteen month period to the end of June reflect continued investment by the company in taking its two assets through the permitting and various studies that are underway. Over the period we posted a loss of £3,900,000 for the eighteen months and we ended the period with 1,300,000 of cash.

20:55 Expenditure was primarily focused on the drilling activities to extend the MREs on the mineral processing test work and other DFS and permitting related work to progress the development of the two assets. Turning to page 20, post the period end there have been two significant events that have strengthened the balance sheet and enhanced our liquidity. On July 10, we raised just over £2,000,000 before expenses from a placing of 53,000,000 shares at 4B per share. Concurrent with that placement, our then largest shareholder Clara Resources sold its 23% stake to Metals X Limited. For those that don't know them, Metals X is Australia's one of the world's largest tin producers from its 50% ownership at the Renison TIN mine in Tasmania.

21:48 Nettles X also subscribed for 11,500,000 shares in that July placement which maintained its holding at the 23% level. Given their long standing TIN experience and the strong balance sheet that they have, we see Metals X's strategic investment as a really strong endorsement of the potential in our assets. The second major event was the announcement on October 28 of a further placing of 133,000,000 new shares at 6p per share to raise another 8,000,000 before expenses. This is subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting convened on November 19. Importantly, we have signed undertakings from shareholders representing over 54% of the current issued share capital to vote in favor of the resolutions at the general meeting.

22:39 The table on the right hand side provides details on the key shareholders holding over 3% post that placement. You can see that Metals X along with other key shareholders have supported this raise and Metals X will increase their holding to 29.9%. These capital raises provide us with the confidence and financial wherewithal to undertake our planned program over the next fifteen months which I will now just walk you through. The majority of the funding we've raised will be allocated to the Tauranga project directed towards the compelling enhancement opportunities identified during the DFS which Tony has already described with the goal of increasing the project's NPV to around 400,000,000

23:30 at a 30,000 TIN price and on progressing through the final permitting requirements. The activities include the conversion of the additional inferred resources so the drilling of the in pit and near pit targets to get the deeper and wider pit, the testing of extensions in the parallel zones, the delivery of a revised resource estimate, further work on process design and optimization of the pits and continued mineral processing test work to confirm the recoveries that we've recently announced. Funds will also support activities related to the completion of the environmental impact statement, the final permitting and also for some early site works which as a landholder we can do which prepare the project for future development and construction phases.

24:23 With the majority of the funds being allocated to Australia, the funds allocated in Germany will be used to support internal activities related to progressing permitting and related community engagement. There'll be some minimal field work also taking place in Germany to ensure that we retain the exploration licenses at Gaithersburg and Alsberg. So turning to page 24 to conclude, significant progress has been made in the period under review. The outlook for the TIN market remains positive due to the structural shifts underway and TIN is increasingly recognized as a critical and strategic metal for the energy transition and the digital revolution. These conditions, these structural conditions represent significant opportunities for us with our two projects which are strategically located in the safe compliant jurisdictions of Australia and Germany.

25:22 Taronga is now well advanced with publication of the DFS which shows it's been attractive, low CapEx, low risk and high margin tin mine with significant opportunities as we've described to further enhance its value. The graph on the right hand side illustrates the value we're building in our portfolio. Our immediate focus is progressing Tauranga with further potential to come from the satellite deposits that Tony described and also with Telehauser. In the longer term, we're building the resource foundations at Tinga and Goddessburg. So with that, thank you for your attention and we'll have some time for questions. I hand it back to you, Alessandro. Perfect, Bill, Tony. Thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions. You can do that just by using the q and a tab which is situated on the top right hand corner of your screen.

26:17 Just while the company take a few moments through the questions that have been submitted today, I'd like to remind you the recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And Bill, at this point, if I could hand back to you to chair the q and a, that'd be great. And then I'll pick up from you at the end. Okay. Thanks very much, Alessandra. So yes, we've got a few questions come through. So there's one here from James. Question is how did recent changes in the TIN market including supply disruptions and price fluctuations affect FIRST TIN's outlook for its projects? Good question, James. Look, if anything, it reinforces our belief in the structural changes underway in TIN, in the TIN market and the absolute need for new projects.

27:08 So it increases our confidence on the future. We still, as you saw in the presentation, assume relatively conservative TIN price in in all our work. But I think coming from the ITA presentations, the information you've seen, you know, the market is tighter, inventories are reducing and as I said, new supply will be required to meet the structural growth in TIN. So it gives us a lot of confidence. Excuse me. Second question is from Andrew. Just a I'll take a drink of water. So Andrew is asking, Could you provide more detail on the company's approach navigating the regulatory landscape in Germany and Australia?

28:04 Really good question, Andrew, for a developer. Look, for pickup in Australia, it's work built in both cases. There's considerable work goes along every number of years in terms of engagement with the community, understanding the planning requirements, understanding the environmental requirements, doing a lot of field work in terms of understanding flora, fauna, water balances, all this. There's a lot of preparatory work that goes through. In Australia, as Tony said, we put together a concept paper which was submitted to the government. They look at that and they send back to us the Secretary's environmental requirements, the SEERs that Tony mentioned.

28:56 That informs us in terms of what we have to include in our environmental impact statement when we submit that to the authorities. So all those streams of work which we've been working on for the last few years, we pull that all together, prepare this environmental impact statement which addresses all those things identified by the secretary. That gets submitted to the government and then there's an engagement process that goes on public exhibition. The government collect all the responses for that. They review those responses so there's an engagement process that goes through. In parallel, we have meetings with the local communities to understand their needs. We engage with the native landholders or the, in terms of the native title.

29:53 So there's a continual process of engagement with this. And similarly in Germany, there's various studies underway. The process is slightly different. Because it's an underground mine or will be an underground mine, the surface footprint is smaller, therefore we were allowed a fast track process through the approval process there. We're currently in the process of applying for our life of mine plan. We anticipate sometime in the next year we should receive that and then it goes into approval process for the operating plan. So in doing this, again, you're engaged with the mines authority, the people that are approving it to understand their needs.

30:39 You're engaged at the Saxony, the state level and also the federal level in Berlin to progress these. The regulatory changes affect the timelines for project completion. That's a good one. Over the course of the project, of course, we monitor the regulatory requirements. In terms of Tauranga, we are confident that we'll get the environmental statement in next year. We have a lot of local support. It's a state significant development. It's in an old mining area. We do not expect any limiting problems. So we we are, you know, confident that we'll get permitting for the project in the second half of next year.

31:34 On Germany, as I said, we'll go through next year to get the life of mine permitting. And these timelines we've taken account of in our studies. For Tauranga, it'll be probably a couple year build period and into commissioning after that. Third question, Mike has asked why do you think Metals X bought in the FIRST TIN? It's a question a number of people have asked, Mike. Ultimately Metals X are the ones who would answer that question. What I understand discussions with them and what they've said publicly is look they know TIN, they're throwing off a lot of cash in this current market. They're looking at strategic acquisitions.

32:30 They've looked at a lot of TIN assets around the world. They identified our Tauranga asset as the best one which met all their criteria so they've come in as a strategic shareholder. There's another question, Pedro B, when are you planning to get the environmental permit? Yes Pedro, hopefully I already cleared that up. In Tauranga, we'll submit the environmental impact statement early next year. Then it goes to an exhibition, goes to the planning committee. I expect the latter half of next year we'll have the permitting, the developmental approval to go forward.

33:17 And that is indeed pretty much the final step. You then go into final engineering design, procurement and you're into construction then. Another question from Mike. The recent issues in New South Wales, will that in fact affect your permitting? We don't think so Mike. Of course, we've looked at those two instances. We've tried to understand what happened. We've talked to various advisers about that. They were two quite different situations with specific issues. We don't see similar issues with our development but we continue to monitor it and we take into account any learning from that as we prepare our environmental impact statement.

34:10 Albert as opposed to the question, when was the last time a mining permit was granted in Germany? A really timely question Albert. Albert, in the last week, we understand another mine in Saxony has actually received its operating permit, a company called SME. So very recent is the answer to that question and that gives us confidence that the permitting process for our project in Germany will proceed well also. I think, yeah, here's another question. John has asked, Are you expecting any issues with tiling stands and power supplies to the site?

35:04 John, on the power side we are going off grid. In our CapEx we are putting in a solar facility and also gas engines and that will take us off grid and give us the power reliability for our operation. We're also in discussions, early discussions I would say for potential powers to pick up that whole package for us and particularly add wind to it but we have a plan to be off grid so I don't see an issue there. Tailing dams, as Tony described, our processing is very simple. It's primarily simple crushing and gravity separation which gives massive upgrading the beneficiation.

35:55 So in fact, we have a very small sulfide flow, 20 to 30,000 tons a year. That's all. So our sulfide tailings dam is actually very small. And then on top of that, of course, you have your waste rock emplacements and your dry co disposal areas. These things are all included in the environmental impact statement and the mine footprint and that's all taken into account and we don't see any issues with that coming through the development of the environmental impact statement. Those are all the questions I've got at the moment, Alessandra.

36:40 Yes. Bill, thank you very much for answering those questions. Of course, the company can review all the questions submitted today and we will publish those responses out on the investor meet company platform. But just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which you know is particularly important to the company, Bill, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. Thank you, Alison. As I we've made considerable progress over the the last eighteen months. The TIN market story as one of the questions raised is developing as we anticipate and strengthens our case. The need for new TIN mines is there. We believe we've got one of the great developments in Tauranga. It's progressing well with the DFS, looks highly value creating and significant upside potential that we've identified and we'll look into in the next few months.

37:29 Permitting is progressing and I look forward to updating you at the next time. Thank you very much. Bill, Tony, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you 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 it be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of management team of FIRST TIN PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.