Russian miner Seligdar increased its tin production by some 15% in 2021, according to its full-year results.

The company owns and operates the Festivalnoye and Pravourmiyskoye deposits in the Russian Far East through its subsidiary PJSC Rusolovo.

In 2021, the company mined some 585,000 tonnes of ore, of which it processed 544,000 tonnes. Together, the two mines produced some 2,908 tonnes of tin-in-concentrate (tic) in 2021. Production at Festivalnoye (1,651 tonnes tic) continued to be higher than at Pravourmiyskoye (1,257 tonnes tic), having overtaken the latter as the largest mine in Russia in 2020. This improved output was due in part to the improvements made to the Solnechnaya processing plant in 2021.

In its annual report, Rusolovo announced that it plans to install X-ray ore sorting technology at both Solnechnaya and Pravourmiyskoye in the coming year. This technology should increase the feed grade of material passing through the processing plant, rejecting waste rock early and reducing processing costs.

Seligdar also owns the Pyrkakay deposit in the Chukotka region in north-eastern Russia. The deposits holds some 243 thousands tonnes of tin, which the company plans to begin mining in 2028.

Our view: Combined with production from LLC Resursy Malogo Khingana’s Khingan Tailings project and JSC Yanolovo’s new Tirekhtaykh mine, Russia is estimated to have produced some 3,900 tonnes tic in 2021. Over 1,000 tonnes of this was exported to Malaysia and China, with the rest smelted and refined domestically.

We expect output from Seligdar/Rusolovo to grow over the next few years as the company continuously improves processing capacity at Solnechnaya. By 2023, the company aims to achieve a throughput of 400,000 tonnes per annum through the Solnechnaya plant.