Column: Tin market still beholden to the fortunes of Myanmar mine

Tin continues to outperform the rest of the London Metal Exchange (LME) base metals pack as the market awaits the return of the Man Maw mine in Myanmar.

It’s been two years since the mine, one of the world’s largest, was closed for a resource audit. It’s been six months since the authorities in the semi-autonomous Wa State invited applications for new mining permits.

Yet to date there is no evidence of any ramp-up in activity. Indeed, the flow of tin concentrates from Myanmar to neighbouring China has almost dried up completely.

The lingering uncertainty over Man Maw has rekindled fund buying interest and lifted the LME three-month tin price from below $30,000 per metric ton in April to more than $35,000 at the end of August.

Speculators are once again betting on the obscurest part of the tin supply picture.

Waiting for Man Maw

The continued absence of Man Maw supply is manifest in China’s reduced imports of tin concentrates from Myanmar.

The flow of raw material to Chinese smelters dropped to just 933 tons in July, which suggests that not only has activity at Man Maw not resumed, but that the country’s other smaller mines are experiencing some sort of disruption, possibly due to the earthquake which rocked the country in March.

Year-to-date imports from Myanmar have fallen by 77% year-on-year to just 14,200 tons. By way of comparison, monthly imports averaged 15,000 tons in both 2022 and 2023, when Man Maw was still pumping out tin.

The latest concrete news from the Wa State came in July, when the International Tin Association reported that the first new permits had been granted for mining to resume at Man Maw.

The Association warned that it would take time for actual tin production to resume and export flows to recover.

So it has proved.

No scarcity

China’s tin smelters have had some success in compensating for the loss of what was their main supply source until Man Maw was suspended in August 2023.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has emerged as the largest single supplier of tin concentrates this year, while imports from both Australia and Nigeria have also risen sharply.

But total concentrate imports of 73,000 tons through July are still down by 32% year-on-year.

Chinese smelter margins have been squeezed and capacity utilization was below 70% in many parts of the country last month, according to local data supplier Shanghai Metal Market.

Many operators are carrying less than 30 days of concentrate stocks and taking maintenance downtime in the hope that raw materials availability will improve by the time they return.

Yunnan Tin, the world’s largest producer of refined tin, has just powered down its Gejiu smelter for 45 days for its annual overhaul.

Yet to date the loss of Man Maw hasn’t caused any tangible tightness in the refined metal segment of the supply chain.

Global exchange inventory has been stable above the 11,000-ton level for the last three months, a far cry from the days of genuine scarcity in 2021 when stocks dwindled to just 1,000 tons.

It helps that exports from Indonesia have recovered from last year’s permitting disruption. Outbound shipments of 30,000 tonnes through July were up by 64% on the same period of 2024.

It probably also helps that demand from the electronics sector, where tin is used to solder circuit-boards, has been impacted by the escalation in trade tensions between the United States and China.

Bulls return

Tin bulls are undeterred. Funds have lifted their bets on higher prices to 4,515 LME contracts (22,575 tons), while short positions have been slashed to just 610 contracts.

Net positioning is now as long as it’s been since March, when the price spiked to a three-year high of $38,395 per ton on news the M23 insurgent group had briefly seized control of the Bisie tin mine in the Congo.

Bisie swiftly returned to normal operations after the withdrawal of M23 as part of a US-brokered peace deal between the Congo and Rwanda.

Man Maw, however, remains conspicuous by its absence. Funds seem to be betting that a return to pre-closure production levels is not going to happen any time soon.

Whether that’s a correct assumption is unknowable, given the almost complete lack of information flow out of the Wa State.

The answer will become apparent if and when the flow of raw materials over the border to China shows signs of returning to something close to historical norms.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Jan Harvey)