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From Mineweb:

TIN MINING RESURRECTION
Mothballs to come off famous Tasmanian tin mine

In the past decade the great Renison tin mine in north west Tasmania has spent more time closed than open but a tandem development plan to revive a nearby mining camp could see the green button pushed before the end of this year.
Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Thursday , 04 Oct 2007

PERTH -

Metals X Ltd has now waded through some painstaking environmental approvals to re-establish tin mining at Mount Bischoff that will be the trigger for re-opening the nearby Renison mine and tin concentrator.

This comes after the company's September June quarter report that saw the company critical of the slow process through the Tasmanian environmental authority - a process that has also frustrated other mine developers in the island state.

What would have frustrated Metals X was that any environmental issues with Mt Bischoff relate to its last mining phase that was jointly funded by the State and Commonwealth governments.

The company had made it clear that, despite the dramatically improving tin price, that supply of ore feed from Mt Bischoff was critical to the economics of Renison re-opening as a sustainable operation - a move that will see Renison and Mt Bischoff lifting to an annualised tin metal production by mid 2008 of 6,000 tonnes.

Metals X is already Australia's key tin producer through the Collingwood mine in north Queensland that is producing about 3,000 tpa.

Another string to the Tasmanian bow is the Rentails project, a plan to reprocess 18.2 Mt of tailings at Renison grading 0.42% tin and 0.25% copper and this project which may be two years from commissioning could produce 6,000 tpa of tin.

Managing Director said advancing studies on Rentail could see modern processing techniques applied on fuming techniques to minimise any environmental issues.

He said once Rentails is operating Metals X could be producing 18,000 tpa of tin of about 5% of global output.

Studies undertaken on Renison's reopening and developing Mt Bishoff were based on economics of a tin price of $US5,850/t while the current price is $US16,000/t. That, he said, gives the operation ample comfort.

Metals X, through Bluestone Tin Ltd (which later merged with Metals Exploration to create the existing company), acquired Renison from the liquidator of a subsidiary of Murchison United in early 2004 and spent $A80 M ($US70.8 M) not only re-establishing a badly rundown plant, but also explored the Federal Deeps to find new ore to allow mine development to reactivate.

However, when the tin price went into a slide 18 months later and other issues, including problems with the mine contractor developed, Renison went back into mothballs.

Peter Cook told Mineweb that the company was moving the Tasmanian operations into an owner-operator and has already ordered major equipment, and a large mining camp is under construction to lure an adequate workforce - an issue in the previous operation was that it was plagued by inadequate regional housing.

He said a drive-in, drive-out working operation would suit a potential workforce living anywhere in Tasmania, which has provided the leading percentage statistic for Australian states for many years.

Metals X gains a healthy royalty from ownership of ground on part of the Kambalda nickel mining complex and the Mount Keith nickel mine (now owned by BHP Billiton) and its June quarter royalty from these areas was $A3.82 M ($US M). The company is also advancing the huge Wingellina nickel project in Western Australia's far south east, near the South Australian border which is already forecast will cost more than $A1 billion to develop. The advance of this project prompted China's leading nickel producer Jinchuan Group to become lead shareholder in the company with a 12.78% stake.