Mineral intelligence
Tin / Cassiterite mining assets in Africa
Tin is the quiet bottleneck of electronics: almost every circuit board on earth is held together with it, and supply comes from very few places.
STRATUM tracks 3 verified tin assets across West Africa, from greenfield ground through to producing operations. Each is de-identified before publication, and its evidence is stated for what it is: a resource reported under NI 43-101 or JORC, certified assay results, or earlier stage work that has not reached either yet. What follows is the public view.
Tin mining assets tracked on STRATUM
Public view. Operator, licence and exact location are withheld on every asset until access is granted.
Cassiterite, Rare Metals exploration project · Bauchi State · Verified
Bauchi State
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Cassiterite, Rare Metals exploration project · Bauchi State · Verified
Bauchi State
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Cassiterite, Rare Metals, Titanium exploration project · Bauchi State
Bauchi State
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What members see
Grades and assay results, resource and reserve estimates, evidence provenance, deal structure, infrastructure and power, and the geospatial layer. Identity of the operator is released only to compliance-cleared members on an approved request.
Tin mining: uses, market and Africa’s position
What tin is
Tin is mined as cassiterite, a dense tin oxide that weathers out of granite and pegmatite and concentrates in alluvial deposits. Its density is why it can be recovered by gravity methods, and why artisanal miners have worked tin fields for generations with simple equipment.
What tin is used for
Solder
The largest use by a wide margin. Tin solder joins essentially every electronic assembly manufactured, and lead free legislation increased the tin content per joint.
Tinplate
Steel coated with tin for food packaging, where it resists corrosion without tainting the contents.
Chemicals
Tin compounds stabilise PVC and are used in catalysts and coatings.
Battery and glass applications
Emerging uses in energy storage and in float glass manufacture.
Tin market outlook
Tin has one of the tightest supply pictures of any industrial metal. Production is concentrated in a small number of countries, several with meaningful political or permitting risk, and there has been little major new discovery. Because tin is a small fraction of the cost of the electronics it enables, demand is relatively insensitive to price, which makes supply disruption unusually visible.
Tin in Africa
Nigeria's Jos Plateau is one of the oldest tin fields in the world and remains a significant source, worked at both industrial and artisanal scale. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda are also substantial producers, where cassiterite is frequently recovered alongside coltan from the same pegmatite systems.
What to check on a tin asset
For a tin asset, establish whether the resource is alluvial or hard rock, because that determines capital intensity entirely. Check the tin grade in the concentrate rather than in the ore, look at what else reports to that concentrate, and confirm the route to an offtaker: tin smelting capacity is concentrated and access to it is not automatic.