How Indonesia Made 18,000 Tonnes of Tin DisappearTin is an...

How Indonesia Made 18,000 Tonnes of Tin Disappear

Tin is an industrial metal. If we treat industrial metals as a single, atomic asset class, tin doesn’t even come on the investing radar. It should’ve lost some value since the first whispers of global recession made the rounds.

It hasn’t. That made our ears perk up.



Here’s the scoop. Indonesia is one of the world’s largest producers of tin. But environmental standards over there aren’t A-grade.

A sudden attack of conscience has led to government intervention in the tin market. Indonesia exported 118,000 tonnes of tin in 2006. That’ll change according to mining and energy industry representative M.S. Marpaung. Indonesia is cutting its tin quota to 100,000 tonnes per year. Environmental neglect has taken its toll.

This basically, is putting the market in reverse. High tin prices are encouraging new exploration. But the world’s supply of tin won’t be advancing much until Indonesia sorts out its blues.

More on this in the upcoming Diggers and Drillers, by the way.

You won’t hear about tin on the evening news. Why? It’s a base metal. Base metals are going down. That’s all you need to know. You can’t argue with sweeping generalisations like that.

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