Stay informed with free updates
Just register mining myFT Digest – delivered straight to your inbox.
Cornish Tin Mines, an early mining group, has been granted rights to explore for gold and silver by King Charles, the latest boost to Cornwall’s ambitions to revive its mining heritage.
The Crown has multi-billion pound land assets and the Crown Estate has granted the British company a six-year option to exclusively explore for precious metals in two areas of Cornwall, representing 14% of the county’s land area.
Cornish Tin is primarily looking for lithium and tin, two materials considered crucial for the shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles, but the discovery of precious metals and these strategic elements will help improve project economics. Rights to minerals such as lithium are held by private landowners, not Crown property.
Sally Norcross-Webb, chief executive of the six-year-old company, said it was “a major win as it completes the full suite of minerals that we are entitled to mine”.
Cornwall was once a global center for mining of china clay – the raw material for ceramics – but mining and manufacturing activity in the area has declined, leaving one of the UK’s poorest regions largely reliant on tourism.
Rival project developer Cornish Lithium is leading the race to transform south-west England into a mining jurisdiction important for the energy transition, with others including Cornish Metals, Imerys-British Lithium and Tungsten West not far behind. The industry’s nascent recovery took its biggest step yet in August when Cornish Lithium secured a $67 million investment package backed by national lender UK Infrastructure Bank.
Cornish Tin is a minnow and will take at least five years to produce anything, requiring multiple rounds of financing and exploration.
Founder Norcross-Webb was a lawyer who specialized in mineral rights issues in the UK and has been using her expertise to accumulate mineral rights in Cornwall.
The company currently owns 123,447 acres of gold and silver mineral rights. On this land, the company has signed rights to all other minerals from copper and lithium to tin and tungsten across 3,900 acres, including its flagship Great Wheal Vor project in the old Breage mining district.
Cornish Tin appointed Clive Newall, co-founder of $15 billion Canadian copper giant First Quantum Minerals, as chairman in 2021, adding a mining industry heavyweight to the board that could bolster the company’s ability to raise capital. He also invested in the group.
The company has raised £2.8 million and is seeking to raise around £3 million through a combination of private placements and retail investor funding at a pre-money valuation of £27 million to fund a second drilling program starting next year.
Norcross-Webb said the Crown Estate’s grant of the lease option highlighted the complexity of the UK’s mineral rights system.
“The mining rights system in the UK is very confusing. It’s very different to the rest of the world,” she said. “The mineral rights are in private hands and you can’t just apply for a license.”
Some areas within the Cornish tin mine’s tenements include holiday homes and areas of outstanding natural beauty, according to senior figures familiar with the Cornish mining industry.
Norcross-Webb said the area was largely agricultural and the mineral development had the support of farmers and any development would protect the landscape, as set out in the local planning policy adopted in 2018.
In 2021, Cornish Lithium was awarded the rights to explore for lithium in geothermal brines off the coast of Cornwall by Crown Estate.
Svlook
