Tin Shortage Impacting ChinaA historic tin deficit forecast to last for a considerable period is impacting China.
China has gone beyond being just a dominate global manufacturing centre and over the last decade become a leading innovator in all areas. China has been electrifying its transportation fleet, leading in solar panel manufacture and installation, leading in chip manufacturing, rolling out internet of everything, and on and on. From Widipedia:
"China's rapid industrialization requires imports of minerals from abroad. In particular, iron ore imports from Australia and the United States have soared in the early 2000s as steel production rapidly outstripped domestic iron ore production. Also China has become increasingly active in several African countries to mine the reserves it requires for economic growth, particularly in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China Tin is critical to China and China has to act to secure reliable supply lines to feed its rapidly expanding need for tin.
Alphamin is a prime target for a Chinese takeout for a number of reasons.
China has experience working in Africa and DRC in particular.
Alphamin has a highly profitable producing operation.
Alphamin has the highest grade tin deposit far and away above anything else in the world. Grade is king as evident in Alphamin's very low all in sustaining costs. With high grades Alphamin can process a lot less ore to produce the same amount of tin as other producers.
The Mpama North deposit has a 12.5 yr mine life that is about to be expanded with recent drilling.
Alpamin is proving up the Mpama South resource. A new resource estimate is coming out in January.
Alpamin started drilling up targets along the 13 km Bisie Ridge that from geophysical work are likely to be high grade deposits. From the November presentation:
Bisie ridge defined by anomalous tin along its 13km
length
Mpama North and South “Signature” repeated as
an indication of potential cassiterite deposits:
Across license area – 13km long Bisie ridge
Structural interpretations and geophysical
anomalies
Latest soil geochemical sample assays
confirm strong anomalies
At least 6 replica Signatures of Mpama
North/South identified
Targets being refined for drill testing
First target drilling expected to commence November
2021
The demand for tin is growing and outstripping supply that is projected to continue is putting pressure on China to act to have a secure tin supply.
A likely Chinese candidate to make a move on Alphamin is giant Ziji Mining
https://www.zijinmining.com/business/Reserves-&-Resources.htm