Coffee with Samso Episode 1
The Australian Tungsten projects are a little bit of a mystery for me. When you do some research on the market, one could be forgiven to think why would anyone want to play in this space. The price is not favourable and the market is not very receptive to supply. The Chinese market views the tungsten sector in a much different way to the rest of the world. The way this work is that China appears to have the upper hand. They have the bulk of world resource and the absolute dominance on demand dynamics.
In Australia, there is no doubt that the stand out project has been King Island Scheelite’s (ASX: KIS) Dolphin project. The information that is in the public domain appears to be very good. What everyone cannot understand is why is this not being developed. The current pricing may not be the best but with those grades, one would think that you could make some money.
King Island is the most western large island in the Bass Strait, located between Victoria and Tasmania. The Dolphin Project is situated on the south-east coast of the island, near the mining town of Grassy.
The Dolphin Tungsten Mine operated between 1917 and 1992 when it was closed due to extremely low tungsten prices, rather than a lack of reserves.
Over the last few years, KIS has concentrated on optimising a redevelopment strategy for the Dolphin Tungsten Project, which contains a JORC 2012 compliant Mineral Reserves of 3.14Mt at a grade of 0.73% WO3 (at 0.2% cut-off).
Mineral Resources, including the Mineral Reserves, total 9.6Mt at a grade of 0.90% WO3 (at 0.2% cut-off). The current development plan envisages an 8-year open cut mine producing a concentrate for supply into the Ammonium Paratungstate market.
Tungsten Mining (ASX: TGN) which bought the Watershed Tungsten project in Queensland is another player that is worth keeping on the watchlist. They have raised some good money over the last 12-18 months so that should give them a good run at developing the projects that they hold in their portfolio.
I am wondering why are that they still on a project acquisition trail with their recent announcement to enter Hatches Creek in the Nothern Territory.
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