Tin is making a comeback.

It’s being led by Queensland-based Stanaurum in the granite belt border country.

Stanaurum, a Latin abbreviation for tin (Sn) and gold (Au), has a 129,000ha EPM near Stanthorpe which includes an historical 20ha mining lease.

Main image – five year price of tin; courtesy Trading Economics

The company has also identified reserves of tungsten, molybdenum, ribidium and rare earth metals.

The region was mined from the late 1900s until the time of the tin collapse in 1985, executive chairman and CEO Tony Fawdon said.

Mr Fawdon addressed last night’s Queensland Exploration Council investment showcase saying the metal was ripe for the picking.

There was only two days’ supply currently on the London Metal Exchange he said.

“That’s good for us to make good money. But just recently last year the price ran to $US40,000/t (US$47,540/t on 28Feb22) then retreated again. 

“So there’s a nervousness about the tin market. Basically tin is being used for the solder, the glue, of all the electronics. 

“The situation is that everyone is building EV motorcars. Obviously the electric grid is going to be bigger and bigger and bigger. 

“Unfortunately, no one’s thought about where the tin is going to come from. And now we’re down to a couple of days supply for industry in the whole world. 

“So supply is definitely constrained. And sometime soon, I don’t know when, but the tin price will rocket through the roof and, when it does, people will come back out looking for tin.”

The Stanaurum tenements also have molybdenum and other critical minerals deposits including ribidium.

“Ribidium is used in atomic clocks and it’s used in medicine as a dispersement for chemicals into the body. The Americans have just put it on their critical list,” Mr Fawdon said. 

“Now that (ribidium) gravitates between $10 to $1 a gram. So some of the ground that we have with the rubidium, if we can recover that ribidium, we can make money for every BCM (Bench Cubic Metre) we mine, let alone the tin or the tungsten or the clay or the moly (molybdenum).”

The QEC investment showcase is held quarterly.