MARKETS SPECTATOR: Rocking the Kasbah

Shares in tin explorer and miner Kasbah Resources surged as much as 21 per cent after Japan’s Nittesu Mining said it will pay $7.25 million for a 5 per cent stake in Kasbah’s Achmmach tin project in Morocco.

Nittetsu will also buy 5 per cent of the tin mined at the site, some 90km south of Fez, at market prices. Achmmach may contain as much as 130,000 tonnes of contained tin, the largest undeveloped tin mine in the world. Kasbah this year hopes to complete the final technical pre-mining procedures at Achmmach. It may begin mining next year.

About 50 per cent of mined tin is used in the electronics industry.

Kasbah has a second tin deposit tin Morocco that it is in the preliminary stages of drilling and analysis. Toyota Tsusho last year said it may acquire up to a 20 per cent stake in the Achmmach project. The Japanese import export company wants to import as much as 30,000 tonnes of tin from Achmmach a year, half of which will go to automakers and the other 15,000 tonnes will go to electronics makers, Kasbah’s managing director Wayne Bramwell told Markets Spectator. Toyota Tsusho has an option to buy as much as 20 per cent of Achmmach’s production at around market prices, he says.

Bramwell forecasts the tin price per tonne will rise to as much $US26,000 a tonne later this year from its current $US19,767 as the world’s second largest tin producer, Indonesia, shuts mines later this year. He says Achmmach’s all-in costs are $US15,000 a tonne.

At 1524 AEST Kasbah’s stock was up 0.5 cents, or 5.8 per cent, to 9.2 cents after rising as high 10.5 cents earlier this afternoon.