London-listed Bushveld Minerals Ltd. has announced its intention to purchase a 49% share in Dawnmin Africa Investments Ltd., which holds an 85% stake in the Uis Tin Project in the Erongo region of Namibia.

The purchase will be undertaken through Bushveld’s subsidiary, Greenhill Resources. The project consists of three tenements, but the primary focus is to redevelop the large, open pit, hard rock, Uis tin mine, which closed in 1990 following 39 years of industrial large-scale mining. Historical exploration work had defined a resource of 70.3Mt at 0.14%Sn, or some 94,000 tonnes of contained tin.

Bushveld CEO, Fortune Mojapelo, said: “The completion of the potential acquisition would see Bushveld Minerals acquire a substantial interest in one of the largest undeveloped opencast hard rock tin deposits in the world.

The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals and negotiation of definitive agreements.

ITRI View: Significant development work will be necessary at Uis before industrial scale production could be considered, with the first step likely to be confirmation drilling to upgrade historical resource estimates to current standards. Any development work will also have to contend with current small-scale tin production by artisanal miners reported at several of the project’s tenements.

The acquisition of a stake in the Uis project would add to the company’s existing tin project portfolio, which includes the Mokopane and Marble hall tin projects, both situated in the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa. Development work at Mokopane is the most advanced and the company is now determining final capital and operating expenditure requirements for an updated financial development model.