Britain’s only tin mine could end up exporting much of its future production to the United States after the American government signaled it was prepared to provide up to $225 million (£166 million) in funding to revitalize the historic South Crofty site in Cornwall.
Cornish Metals, which is working to bring the South Crofty mine near Camborne back into production, has received an expression of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Exim) proposing a potential financing package linked to the supply of tin to the US market.
The move comes less than a year after Cornish Metals secured a £28.6 million equity investment from Britain’s government-backed National Wealth Fund, which was then seen as supporting domestic supplies of a strategically important mineral.
Cornish Metals said in its statement that Exim’s interest was specifically tied to South Crofty providing a “responsible supply of tin concentrate to the United States” as Washington seeks to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals and reduce dependence on producers abroad.
The company estimates that restarting the mine will cost around £198 million by mid-2028, with both costs and timelines increasing over the past year. The company is now seeking to secure financing to cover capital expenditure and operating costs towards production. Cornish Metals shares rose 2.7 percent after Exim’s interest was confirmed.
Tin is considered a critical mineral and is widely used in electronics, renewable energy systems and advanced manufacturing. There is currently no domestic tin production in the UK and South Crofty is expected to produce an average of around 4,700 tonnes of tin concentrate per year over the first five years, roughly equivalent to the UK’s total annual consumption.
Cornish Metals chief development officer Fawzi Hanano said the US funding proposal inevitably came with expectations around offtake.
“Exim wouldn’t give money to a foreign company unless there’s something in it for them,” he said. “Ideally they would want the entire production, but in reality it would be a certain percentage based on the level of funding provided.”
He confirmed that South Crofty’s future production is not currently tied to buyers and that the mine is not obliged to supply UK customers despite the National Wealth Fund’s involvement.
One of the challenges, Hanano said, is that while the mine will produce a high-quality tin concentrate, the UK and Europe do not currently have the smelting capacity required to process it into refined tin metal.
“There is currently no smelting capacity in the UK or Europe, so there is no market for tin concentrate domestically,” he said. Although the United States lacks significant smelting capacity today, it is in the process of expanding it as part of its critical minerals strategy.
Hanano suggested that agreements between governments could still allow some tin to flow back to end users in the UK in the future. “If one country has upstream capacity and another has processing capacity, there are structures in place where material can be processed and some of it returned. That is ultimately a decision that governments have to make.”
The potential deal highlights growing geopolitical competition for critical minerals and raises questions about the extent to which British-backed resource projects can ultimately serve domestic industries when global supply chains and foreign government funding come into play.
