London 18/08/2016 - Myanmar tin production may have reached its peak at 50,000 tonnes per year, industry association ITRI said in a release on Wednesday.
The longer-term outlook for production in the Wa county depends on whether there are new resource discoveries in the next few years.
“Otherwise, production may peak in 2015-2017 and then decline,” it said.
Estimated tin production in this region has seen a more than 10-fold increase in the four years to 2015, which has been almost entirely due to the rapid growth in the Wa County.
While there is still significant potential for the discovery of new ore resources, ITRI said there has been an underlying decline in mining activity and depletion of readily accessible higher grade ore resources.
This, however, has been masked by a big increase in imports reported by China in the first half of 2016 – up 88 percent year-on-year gross weight – and is based on depletion of above ground stocks of ore and concentrate accumulated over the last few years.
Most ore mined now grades between 2-3 percent tin. A large newly discovered high grade of 7-8 percent was exploited in the second half of last year and the early part of this year, but is now largely depleted.
Tin was last trading on the LME at $18,345 per tonne and down $5 on the previous close.
(Editing by Ian Walker)