First Tin (LSE:1SN) — Interim Results

0:01 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 they can be submitted at any time using the q and a tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. 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 questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll.

0:33 And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, Bill Scotting. Good morning to you. Thank you, Alex, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to this presentation about interim results for the six months to the end of December twenty twenty four. As usual, I'm joined by Tony Truelove, who's our chief geologist and chief technical officer. Tony's sitting in Brisbane in Australia at the moment. So good evening to you, Tony. Good evening. So page one here, that's the usual disclaimer, which I just draw your attention to. The agenda for this morning, we'll start with just some highlights for the period and an overview of the macro outlook as it relates to TIN. Tony will then provide an update on progress at our two assets before I provide a quick overview of the finances, and we'll finish by outlining our priorities going forward before opening for any questions.

1:33 So over the reporting period, we continued to make strong progress and achieved significant milestones at both our assets. Importantly, there were no accidents or environmental incidents reported. At Taronga, the New South Wales permitting process as a state significant development formally kicked off when we lodged the scoping report with a request from the New South Wales planning secretary's environmental assessment requirements known as CIRS. The scoping report outlined the key components of the Taronga project and is used by the various New South Wales government departments and regulatory agencies to specify the range of assessment requirements for inclusion in our environmental impact statement.

2:20 The essential SEERS notification informs what specialist studies to finalize for inclusion in the EIS that was received in September enabling the work on the EIS to progress. We required additional studies related to the anticipated disturbance footprint for the proposed mine can and access road to be done. We now expect the EIS to be completed and submitted in late March, April this year. A successful outcome will be a major milestone for this project, unlocking significant value for the company, and we are pleased with the progress currently being made. Over the period, we also continued mineral processing test work and found high recoveries coming out of the coarse gravity circuit work, which would be good for the economics.

3:08 Tony will describe shortly in more detail the successful trial blast. At Telehauser, permitting related work progress with the completion of a redesign of the product area, product depth area, and a completion of a baseline study for underground and aboveground power requirements. We also kicked off analysis of historic drilling data for the Goddessburg area following the same process with the successful work done earlier last year for Telehauser. As a junior miner undertaking exploration and development, there's not so much to report on the finances. The results reflect the continued investment by the company in progressing our assets through their permitting and feasibility study work.

3:54 The highlight of the finances was a successful raising of £10,000,000 in equity, which has provided us with cash to drive forward our development and value enhancement program. Turning to the macro, we can see that TIN prices have been relatively resilient given the volatile macroeconomic environment over the past few months. From a peak of over $34,000 in early October, TIN prices dropped back to range around 29 to $30,000 per tonne over most of December, primarily related to the potential impact of the new Trump administration's tariff and trade policies. Underlying demand drivers for TIN remained positive.

4:42 The electronics sector continues to grow with record global semiconductor sales in 2024, and China's electronic manufacturing sector, PV capacity, and new EV sales and production all growing in 2024. Supply constraints remain in Myanmar and Indonesia, but are now compounded by increasing uncertainty of the upsurge in conflict in the DRC, the region which is source of around 7% of tin supply today. With demand growing, inventory is low, tin prices have again increased post period end. They moved above $32,000 per ton in February before tailing off a bit again over the last couple of weeks.

5:29 The structural story remains positive. Supply side developments, sentiment, and the impact of involving, tariff policies that'll continue to drive tin prices in the short term. The longer term structural need for tin for new tin supply remains, which is really the key for junior explorers and developments. Demand drivers from the energy transition and the digital transformation remain strong with a multiplicity of growing uses of TIN. TIN was the best performer across base metals over the last year. Primary TIN production continues to stagnate, and the pipeline for new TIN projects is slim as you can see on the chart on the bottom left here.

6:15 Only a couple of the projects have a DFS with the majority at concept PEA or PFS study level. Even if all these projects were delivered, it would fall well short of the anticipated medium term demand growth, so it is hard to argue against a coming supply deficit and knock on impact on TIN pricing.

6:38 The main consumers of TIN are China, The US, EU, and Japan highlighted in the blue circles here. As the map here shows, they are also by quirk of geology short of TIN resources, so their advanced manufacturing sectors are reliant on tin imports. Unfortunately, the key tin exporting regions are prone to instability. We have ongoing regulatory changes continuing to create uncertainty for exports from Indonesia, with the exports reportedly down 33% year on year in 2024. Similarly, despite periodic rumors, the ban on Myanmar mining remains in place, and even when lifted, will take time to recover.

7:27 Reduction in Chinese imports from Myanmar was offset by higher imports from Africa. However, as already mentioned, the recent escalation of conflict in the DRC region with insurgents gaining control of key cities has raised concerns for supply disruptions going forward. South America periodically experiences site supply disruptions due to social situations. So given the billions of dollars and euros invested in advanced manufacturing,

7:58 an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment requires secure, traceable, and compliant supply chains. There are two developments located in Australia and Germany. FIRST TIN is well placed to provide that sustainable supply. So with that introduction, I'll hand over to Tony who will take you through the progress we're making in bringing our projects to fruition. Tony? Yeah. Thanks, Bill. I think you've clearly shown there that the world needs new TIN projects, and FIRST TIN is is here to help fill that gap. We've got a very large resource base. We believe it's the fourth largest outside of China, and we're we're looking at a total of nearly 310,000 tons of contained tin.

8:51 Interestingly, about the same amount in, in Tallahassee or as in Taronga, both with about a 138,000 tons, and, a smaller resource at Goddessburg, which we're currently doing some work on and have to increase that significantly. We also have, over about 52,000 tons of tin metal in reserve, and we believe that's probably the biggest undeveloped reserve in the world as well. And that's, that's located entirely at Taronga. So Taronga is a a quite a unique project. It's well advanced.

9:37 We've got we've bought all the freehold land, which has significantly lowered the risk. We've got open open pitch with a very low strip ratio and very simple, mineralogy and mineral processing. So those factors make, these deposit quite unique in the world. We currently looking at putting in a solar power system into the project and crushing during daylight hours. That has two effects. One is that it deep it reduces the cost to for for running the, the crusher during the daylight hours, and it reduces noise during nighttime hours.

10:29 We've come a fair way over the last few years. So we've completed the DFS. We've launched the MLA and had native title clearance associated with that. We launched the the the scoping report and requested Sears. We received CIRS, and we're currently very close to finalizing and submitting the environmental impact statement. The economics are very attractive for the project. The at the current TIN price at at $30,000 US TIN price, we have an NPV of about 243,000,000 Australian. We're currently in the process of doing some additional drilling and some more advanced metallurgical test work.

11:25 Factoring that in. We we've very close to getting the NPV to about 400,000,000, and there's very good upside on top of that with, additional resources and, the, upside in the TIN price.

11:47 So Tauranga is our flagship ore body. As I mentioned previously, it has two unique characteristics. One is that it's a very broad, system, which means that it has very low strip ratio. So for every ton of ore we mine, we only have to mine one ton of waste. So the strip ratio is one to one. That means that our mining costs are very low. Just for comparison, I've done a lot of work in the gold fields of Western Australia, and an average pit there would have a strip ratio of between five and ten to one. The, the second point, which I've already noted, is that the mineralogy is is very good.

12:37 You can see on the bottom pictures there that the material, tends to break along the veins that host the tin. So by crushing to a relatively coarse size, we can liberate most of the tin. Those two factors mean that, we can produce tin at a quite low cost, of about $12,000 US dollars per ton, with an all in sustaining cost of under 16,000 US dollars per ton. At the current price of, over 30, that gives us a very good margin. The other price you can see there, the full cost includes the cost of the build. So the the processing is is very simple.

13:27 We we mine the ore. We crush it, down to about, 12 millimeters, which is road gravel size. At that stage, we screen it, and anything above 2.8 millimeters, we throw away. The rest goes through into a very simple gravity circuit. We screen at point four of a millimeter with the oversize going straight to jigs, and the, the, the tails from that are direct tail with very low grades. After that, we recombine it with the point four from the screen, and then it's very simple cyclone spirals and tables, which get us down to about 20,000 tons per annum of preconcentrate, which is then very simply, upgraded to 60% by, tin dressing circuit.

14:27 So there's two two takeaways, I guess, from this. One is that we have a very rapid reduction in mass, which reduces the back end costs significantly. And because of that, our processing costs are very competitive.

14:47 We recent recently undertook some trial blasts. So we did three blasts using different powder factors. Now powder factor is simply an estimate of how much explosives you need to use at each blast. So we used what we had put in the DFS, which was point five. We also did a point eight and a point three. All of them gave very, very good results. They're all usable. At the moment, we will stick with the point five, but we think there's very good chance that we can use point three once we start mining.

15:40 Recently, while we've compiled all the previous exploration results over the the past fifty years in the district, and as we suspected and as we knew, we've got a lot of targets, within a 30 kilometer radius of, the Toronto processing facility. You can see the two circles there. The inside one is a 15 kilometer radius, and the outside one is 30. Within that, we have a whole heap of prospects, which are which we call a prospect pipeline. There's a some are at resource drilling stage. Others are at conceptual stage, but there's for every one we advance, we have another one coming in at the bottom. So a lot of work to do.

16:34 We see this as being a a long term TIN district rather than a simple, TIN project.

16:44 Currently, we're about to start a a significant drilling program of about 10,000 meters designed largely to convert inferred resources to indicated and also to define mineralization to the north of the two pits. Preliminary pit optimization suggests that we can increase our mine life up to around about fifteen years if if that drilling is successful. So a very high return for a for a small amount of drilling.

17:25 Just briefly, touching on our other project, in Germany. It's a very good deposit in its own right, quite different to Taronga because the it will be an underground mine. And, our aim there is to not have any waste at surface at all. So all our rejects and and tailings will remain underground. The deposit is significantly higher grade than, than Taronga, by a factor of between five and ten. So we're looking at somewhere between point 81% TIN. And interestingly, it also has significant credits of, critical, raw materials, in particular, Indian, which we all already have a resource for.

18:15 And more recently, we've realized there's also quite significant gallium, in this deposit. Just finishing off, Telehaz is located in the heart of Germany's Silicon Saxony. So Germany's long been an advanced manufacturing powerhouse. Telehouser is located very near to the, Silicon Saxony semiconductor belt, which is quite difficult to say. And that's the, EU's largest hub and close to Germany's largest, EV auto hub and also significant OEM

18:59 supplier base. So development of Telehazel will provide increased supply chain security for these essential manufacturing centers and also reduce reliance on long distance supply chains. So with that, I'll hand you back to Bill. Thanks, Tony. So a lot of progress made on the ground and a lot of developmental opportunity in our project pipeline and value enhancement opportunity that we're going after there. So turning briefly to the financials, as a junior mining company, we currently have no income, and the company meets its working capital requirements through raising developmental finance.

19:45 Therefore, the support we received from our shareholders at the back end of last year for the £10,000,000 equity raises was very, very important. This provides us with the financial runway to deliver on our program through the course of this year. The results for the six months period to the end of December reflect the continued investment by the company in progressing the two assets through permitting and the various required studies. Expenditure during the period was primarily focused on progressing the EIS and DFS enhancement opportunities at Tauranga, and in Germany, lesser expenditure on progressing the permitting and the desktop archive work for the Goddessburg m MRE update that Tony referred to.

20:34 We posted a loss of 900,000 for the period, and we ended the period with a cash balance of 8,360,000 following the equity raise.

20:48 Here we have the priorities for the next twelve months, the steady development of what we've been communicating before. The majority of the funding we've raised will be allocated to driving forward the Tauranga project. It'd be directed towards the what we believe the compelling value enhancement opportunities identified in the DFS with the goal of increasing the project's NPV to around 400,000,000 Australian dollars and also on finalizing the permitting requirements. Key activities will include the drilling program that Tony described, which has, you know, for relatively low cost, a lot of upside potential, and also our continued metallurgical testing program to improve recoveries.

21:36 Funds will also support the activities to complete the EIS statement. It'll also support the the early site works and preparing the project for future development and construction phases. With the majority of the funds going to Australia, the funds allocated to Germany are used primarily on internal resources, internal activities related to progressing the permitting, and also community engagement there. And there'll be some minimal fieldwork to ensure we retain the exploration licenses at Goddessburg and Allersburg.

22:17 So to conclude, significant progress has been made under the period under review. The outlook for the TIN market remains very positive due to the structural shifts underway, with TIN increasingly recognized as a critical and strategic metal for the energy transition and digital revolution. It's absolutely essential for advanced manufacturing. Overlaid with increased supply side uncertainties, these conditions of increasing demand and constrained supply, they present significant opportunities for FIRST TIN with our two projects, which are strategically located in the safe compliant jurisdictions of Australia and Germany.

23:03 Tauranga is well advanced. The DFS has been published. It shows an attractive low CapEx, low risk, high margin TIN mine, and we've found significant low hanging fruit opportunities to further enhance the value. We're now in the final stretches of the preparing environmental impact statement, and that'll be a major step forward for the project leading to permitting. The graph on the right hand side of this page illustrates the value we're building in our portfolio. We have significant resource base, and beyond Tauranga, there is further potential to come from the satellite deposits that Tony illustrated and also, from Telehauser in Germany.

23:51 In the long term, we've got the foundations of Tinga and Goddessburg. So with that, thank you for your attention. I'll hand it back to Alex, and I believe we'll have some time for questions. Fantastic. Bill, Tony, thank you very much indeed for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the q and a tab situated on the top right corner of your screen. While the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via our investor dashboard. Bill, Tony, as you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation.

24:31 And, Bill, if I may now hand back to you to chair the q and a, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Thank you very much, Alex. And and, yeah, there's a few questions coming through, so I appreciate that. There's one here that doesn't have a name. The question posed is when is it reasonable to expect you to begin raising revenues and the typical lead times we're looking at here? A good question because we're increasingly turning our our attention to

25:02 preparing for construction, financing, and leading into operational readiness. The the key criteria will be the permitting, how long it takes to get the permit. We believe it will be permitted before the end of this year. The second driver will then be the project financing, which allows you to then get into the final engineering design, into the procurement, fabrication, and construction. It's a relatively simple project. As Tony said, a simple open pit mine and not a lot of mobile equipment. The processing plan is all base what I call basic equipment, basic crushers, basic gravity processing plant, and a small sulfide float.

25:50 So we expect the the fabrication and preparation of that will be relatively fast in comparison to to other mining projects we're seeing. In theory, we should we could be or should be, assuming it goes to plan, having revenues in 2027. As I said, the critical requirement will be the timing of permitting and the raising of the project financing.

26:22 So there's a follow-up question along the same vein from George about the permitting, expecting the first production. So, yeah, we'll if we're permitted this year and raising the finance, we'll be into the pre stripping and the early mining the back end of next year. And as I said, we'll be into then 2027 commissioning the plant and generating revenues. So, you know, that developmental program, I I still believe, is very, very realistic. We do not see at this stage any specific issues that would cause us concerns over the permitting.

27:15 There's another question here from Ben. What is your long term outlook for TIN demand, and what sectors do you see driving most growth? How are you positioned to benefit? Yeah. Very good question, Ben. This is the this is the crux of why TIN is very attractive.

27:39 Look. TIN demand is being driven by the energy transition and being driven by the digital transformation. Just over half of TIN goes into solder. Solder is the connector which links all electronic devices. So everything from your your mobile phones, your PCs, TVs, the EVs, the connections in the energy grids, robotics, AI, semiconductors, all these things require TIN. So there's quite a broad base of demand drivers. Solar energy is another one, and these are all grow growing, and you don't have to have heroic assumptions on those.

28:31 Solar growth continues to exceed expectations. Nothing grows at that rate forever, but it's very healthy. And we will benefit from all of that. As I point out in the presentation, most of the demand for TIN is in North America, EU, Japan, Korea, China. With the exception of China, there's not much TIN in any of those places. They require new TIN mines. Existing supply can't keep up, and that's how we'll benefit from that. We we get our project up and running. We participate in that and it's long term demand growth as well.

29:21 Another question from Ben. How are you controlling costs across projects in Australia and Germany with rising inflation in the mining sector? Yeah. Good question again, Ben. Look. Inflationary effects have always been long been a problem in mining. How are we dealing with that? There's two things. There's inflationary effects on the CapEx, which with we haven't started purchasing that.

29:51 One of the things we've done there is to we're doing self perform works to the extent we can already, which means the groundwork is prepared on-site, so things for the solar, the areas for where the the infrastructure would be built and so on. So this reduces our costs. We're constantly looking at opportunities to improve, so going off grid with the solar is a a cheaper alternative for the energy compared to going on grid and other options. The other thing with the plant, this is a low as I said before, a low tech facility, so we're buying standardized equipment almost you could say off the shelf. We're not buying any leading edge technology here, which is more prone to to the inflation impacts.

30:51 Operationally, various things going off grid with the energy is very beneficial because solar, once it's on-site, is very cheap and as Tony said, we've designed the plan to oversized the crusher to operate during daylight hours to maximize the cheap solar energy, that's one thing. All the work on recoveries. The recoveries gives us not just more TIN units to sell in the market to grow our margin, but it also helps on the cost side as well because it amortizes the fixed costs over a larger volume. The self perform I talked about, you know, that's all part of ongoing review challenge with the team.

31:38 When we get project financing as we go into development, you get into operational readiness in parallel, so planning for for commissioning and ramp up. So there's there's a lot of work that goes into trying to control that. Trevor's put a question here. When do you hope to receive the mining license for Tauranga? We believe we'll have the license, the developmental approval before the end of this year. It's hard to be specific, more specific on that because it depends on how long the authorities take to review the environmental impact statement.

32:24 We go on public exhibition, and then it goes into the the final approval process, but we do not see a reason why it can't be permitted by the end of this year, and that's what we're working towards. Francis has sent in a question. You mentioned an increase of the NPV to $400,000,000 due to technical progress. When will you be releasing an updated feasibility study? Yeah, Francis. This is the the the part of the work that we're doing. So part of that is the drilling program which Tony outlined.

33:09 When we do that drilling program, which will take a few months to do, let's say, to to do and get the results, We look at that. That will go into updating the the pit designs, the pit shells, looking at the mine life, and we'll in parallel, we're doing the metallurgical testing work. Once that work is done, we will then publish an updated document on the NPV, which for a 30,000 TIN price, we we believe these improvements will lead to around 400,000,000 Aussie NPV. So that'll be sometime, I would say, the back half of this year that would should be ready for release.

33:57 Albert's. What are the milestones we can monitor that indicate we're on the right path to the environmental permit? Yeah. A good question, Albert. A lot of work has already been done. We've the environmental work has been ongoing for a couple of years now, so a lot of the studies are basically completed. The key milestones were submitting the scoping report, which was done last August, and then a month later receiving the planning secretary's environmental assessment requirements. Those environmental assessment requirements outlined what we have to submit in the environmental impact statement, and that allows us then to go away and pull together all the threads of all the different work from, you know, heritage, from biodiversity, from transportation, logistics, noise, water, visibility, all these things.

35:00 The additional work we had to do coming out of permitting of other mines last year, we had to do the work for our mine camp, which is somewhat remote from the the mine itself and the road corridor into the mine. So we had to look at the full disturbance footprint for those areas, so we had to prepare the the studies on environmental traffic, heritage, biodiversity for those areas. Those things have now been completed and the whole report is now being pulled together. The different models are being made to talk to each other and that's why I say the back end of March, sometime in April is when we will be finished and ready to submit the environmental impact statement.

35:57 After that, it goes on public exhibition for about a month and then after that, there's let's say one to two months to hear the feedback and for the authorities to review before they determine the permitting. Another question from Albert. When can we hope to get the results of the drilling program? The drilling program, we hope to start in the next month or so. We're waiting on the the permit to do the drilling program. That's a different permit, which has been submitted. We anticipate getting that soon, than the drilling. Tony, do you want to just provide a bit of detail on the timing of the drilling?

36:45 Yes. Sure. Yeah. As you said, the, we're still waiting to get the, the approval to drill. You have to go through a lot of hoops, these days to, to get permission to do, such a significant drill program at 10,000 meters. So, I expect that we will be given approval sometime within the next four weeks. Then, probably another two to four weeks to get the drillers on-site. So maybe drilling in towards the end of April, with first results released in May. And the entire program is about six weeks work, so, we should be releasing the final results in July.

37:38 Okay. Thanks, Tony. And that'll feed then into the update of the feasibility study that we'll do. A question from Trevor. With TIN increasingly seen as a critical strategic mineral, are there likely to be any project finance funds available from government agency sources? Yeah. It's a good question, Trevor. We have in the past received some financing. For example, it benefited us for the solar studies in Australia. This is relatively small financing. We received some funding in Germany, again, on r and d basis. We keep talking to various government agencies about project financing and support for that. Other things at different times governments look at is royalty holidays and the like. It's it's hard to be more specific at this stage. It's something we keep following, monitoring, and engaging on.

38:43 Another question from Terry. Although the TIN price was 40,000 when you IPO'd at 30 p, it is still over 31,000, and you've made massive progress. What do you think it'll take to get the share price from only? Yeah. Very good question, Terry. Get the share price up from the all time lows. Yeah. I always say, you know, IPO ing at the time that's done was a two edged sword. At one on one hand, it allowed it had a high TIN price enabled the capital to be raised. Unfortunately, these the the the Ukrainian situation with the invasion there and the knock on impact on all metals saw that all unwind, and that's what happened in the the last couple of years.

39:36 So not just for us, but the industry, the broader tin juniors, in tin in general, but other metals all had a a massive unwinding. The tin price has recovered a little bit from that. For us getting our share price up, I think there there are two catalysts. One, the catalyst on getting our permitting done and getting the developmental approval and then getting the project financing so that the line of sight to that first production becomes very clear. And the second thing is, of course, the TIN price. Metal prices can be volatile. At the moment, I would say metals are a little bit out of fashion in the markets given the macroeconomic risks, but that changes. And when that changes, you get momentum, and that sort of momentum will bring it back again.

40:29 So we wait on those. The macro is out of our control. What is in our control is getting the permitting done and getting the developmental approval and financing, which is what we focus on internally. Reproduction in 2027 is a displays the various milestones. In in the presentation, there was a chart there which shows, the milestones to the current status in terms of getting the EIS submitted by March, April, then the DPA submissions report, DPA, which is the Department of Planning Environment, by the end of q two, and then the project approval sometime in half two twenty twenty five.

41:17 We show that in the DFS. We did show in effect a two year timeline to build the project. So the the road map of 2027 depends on those milestones we show on page eight today and then on the timing of project financing. And it's hard to give any more detail beyond that because it depends on those two items. That's great. Everything. So everything else. Yeah. I believe you have addressed all those questions from investors today, so thank you very much indeed. But, Bill, before we redirect investors to provide you with their feedback, which one is particularly important to the company, could I please ask you for a few closing comments?

42:06 Yeah. Again, thank you to everyone for attending and specifically for the questions that have been raised. Look. We're the progress on the ground is apparent. It's been strong. We're very positive remain very positive on the outlook for the TIN market. Time will bring the demand. The pricing will come back. We're focused internally now on getting the environmental approval in and getting the project approval. But we're very positive on the outlook for TIN and the requirement for TIN from safe jurisdictions like Australia and Germany. Thank you for your attention. Fantastic. Bill, Tony, thank you once again for updating investors today.

42:54 Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the board can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure we'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of FIRST TIN PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all. Thank you, Alex.