Alphamin Resources — 1 video in collection
In this interview, Alphamin’s chief executive, Eoin O’Driscoll, discusses the company’s rise from being a junior in early 2020, with a share price of just C$0.13, to being a producer and paying an interim dividend of C$0.13/share in FY26. He also talks about what it takes to succeed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, prospects for the tin price, Ebola and the company’s plans, hopes and future challenges.
Alphamin owns (84.14% effective) and operates the Bisie tin mine at Mpama North and Mpama South in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With a grade of c 3% tin (the world’s highest) and accounting for c 7% of global mined supply, it is the second largest tin mine in the world outside China and Indonesia.
How did Alphamin Resources develop the Bisie tin deposit from exploration to production?
Eoin O’Driscoll: Bisie is an extraordinary deposit in an extraordinary location. It’s the highest-grade tin mine in the world. It started out in the 2000s, when it was run as an illegal artisanal mine. It was in some ways a poster child for conflict minerals in the early 2000s.
The artisanals found it difficult to keep going as they dug deeper. Conflict minerals legislation made it more difficult for buyers to buy the product, and that allowed space for Alphamin to come in in the early 2010s and really apply some proper industrial exploration techniques. Alphamin Resources came in from 2012, and from 2013 Denham Capital came in as our anchor funder. From there, it really snowballed.
Exploration results were exceptional. From 2012 to 2014, we completed an exploration programme at Mpama North and found the highest tin grade deposit in the world, at about 150,000 tonnes of tin. We rapidly accelerated development of that mine and built Mpama North in just under two years for $180m. It started production in the middle of 2019, so our first full year of production was 2020. That was obviously a challenging year with COVID, and commodity prices were low.
But from 2021, things really started to snowball. The tin price worked in our favour, we turned cash flow positive, and we were already in a dividend-paying position from 2022. We were also in a position to fund further expansion and further exploration. We very quickly added another 150,000 tonnes at Mpama South, in the space of about 18 months. Again, we decided to develop that mine off the back of what was really a scoping study, which was a calculated risk at the time.
Within 18 months, Mpama South was up and running. It added another 7,000 tonnes to the 13,000 that Mpama North was doing, taking us to our current level of about 20,000 tonnes per annum of contained tin. That’s about 7% of the world’s mined production. The tin market has about 300,000 tonnes of mined production per annum, or 400,000 tonnes including recycling, and we’re in a strong position as a 7% producer.
How does the grade at Mpama North compare with other tin mines in the world?
Eoin O’Driscoll: Mpama North’s resource grade is about 4.5%. The average tin mine in the rest of the world is running at roughly 0.5–0.75%. So it’s an order of magnitude higher than what is out there in the rest of the world.
Other companies have failed to make good deposits work, so what has made Alphamin successful in the DRC?
Eoin O’Driscoll: Geographically, we’re very much in our own area, quite far from the crowded space of the copper mines in Katanga.
I think the secret to our success has really just been sticking to what we said we would do. We’ve had huge government support, provincially and nationally, from the outset. It’s a particularly difficult part of the DRC. It has essentially no infrastructure, it’s had security challenges over the years and, as you know, there’s now the Ebola outbreak. So it’s a very challenging environment in which to operate. But we’ve had huge support from the outset to make a success of it, and our grade has allowed us to produce this profitable mine.
There’s so much enthusiasm and so much potential in this region. It’s completely unexplored because of the security situation, the historical problems and the infrastructure challenges. We saw ourselves, and the government also saw us, as a catalyst for potential future investment into this region. That’s how we always saw our success, although it’s been slowed down a bit recently by the security situation. But we still feel this area is so prospective, and has so much potential, that others will follow us. If they don’t, that’s okay. We’ll just expand ourselves and look around that area, because it has so much mineral potential. It’s incredible.
With both mines at steady state, what is Alphamin’s next big challenge?
Eoin O’Driscoll: We decided to go ahead and develop both deposits, at Mpama North and Mpama South, as soon as we had a 10–12-year life of mine, knowing that they would produce a good return.
When we developed Mpama North, we paused exploration, because the development was taking up all of our resources and capital. When we decided to develop Mpama South, we again paused exploration to focus on the development in terms of people capacity, site capacity and financial capacity.
Both mines are now up and running, and our next big challenge is life of mine. We’ll update our resources and reserves by the end of the year. But if you look at what we put out in 2022, less depletion, clearly we don’t have a long life of mine left.
That said, with current tin prices and free cash flow generation where it is, we have unprecedented capital available to apply to exploration. It’s now our biggest single objective for the next two, three, four years. While maintaining our 20,000 tonnes per annum run-rate of production, we want to really throw the hammer at exploration and try to do this province justice. We’ve always believed it’s not just Mpama North and Mpama South. It’s a tin province that’s completely unexplored, and we’ve now got the capital and the footprint to really make that happen.
Where is Alphamin exploring, and which near-mine and regional exploration techniques is it using?
Eoin O’Driscoll: The initial focus is certainly still on extensions of North and South. When we stopped drilling at Mpama North and Mpama South to start the development of those projects, we were still in the ore body, and we’re continuing to drill for extensions.
It’s been a little bit challenging at Mpama North. We’ve lost contact a little bit with folding, and now we have to find it again on the other side. At Mpama South, we’ve had some really encouraging drill results lately. The last one that we put out a few weeks ago was, I think, 20 metres at 5%, which is really an Mpama North-type hit. So we’ll continue drilling for extensions there.
The wider land package is also extremely prospective. We’ve recently completed a helicopter-borne VTEM survey, which looks for electromagnetic responses. We’re in the process of finalising that now on the western side of our package. It’s showing some very interesting targets that I think will keep us very busy drilling for the next 12 to 18 months, once we refine them.
Is the aim to find and delineate new resources, convert them into reserves and extend the life of mine?
Eoin O’Driscoll: Exactly.
How is the security situation in eastern DRC affecting Alphamin?
Eoin O’Driscoll: It’s an extremely remote area, without real proper road access from the Goma side. It’s been a challenging 18 months. Clearly, we had the evacuation last year as M23 approached the mine.
But we were very encouraged by the international response. We’re still very grateful to the US government, which was very actively involved in the peace process in the region and played a lead role in creating space to allow us to go back in and start operating again. Since we went back in April last year, we haven’t seen much movement in the front lines of the conflict.
It is a very serious matter, and it’s ongoing. M23 still controls large swathes of North and South Kivu. But in terms of our operations, they’re sufficiently far from the mine for us to operate in complete peace, and our import-export routes aren’t affected by M23-controlled areas. So in some ways it’s business as usual, albeit with a bit of reshuffling. We don’t have access to Goma anymore, and we haven’t been there since January last year. But operations are continuing unaffected for now.
Does the dense rainforest around the mine site make it harder for conflict to reach the operation?
Eoin O’Driscoll: It does, and I’d like to say it’s a very special place. It’s an incredibly beautiful place, but it is extremely remote.
Has the Ebola outbreak in North Kivu affected Alphamin’s operations?
Eoin O’Driscoll: It is in North Kivu, but it’s not in Walikale, our part of North Kivu. There have been no cases reported in Walikale.
It’s a devastating disease, and it’s a very serious outbreak. Cases continue to rise, and the fatality rate is still close to 50%. So it’s very serious. But in terms of how contagious it is, it’s the kind of disease that requires transmission through bodily fluids. In a controlled, hygienic environment like a mine site, it’s relatively easy to follow the proper protocols and monitor temperatures. We haven’t had any issues, and we don’t anticipate any.
So production is very much carrying on as normal. Our import-export routes do go through the epicentre of the outbreak, so it’s a matter of making sure the truck drivers follow the protocols and monitoring them closely when they get to the mine. But the borders are open for goods, and we don’t anticipate any impact on production.
Do Alphamin’s export routes run through Uganda and East Africa, with the tin concentrate ultimately going to China?
Eoin O’Driscoll: So far, all of our concentrate goes to China, mainly to Yunnan Tin, which takes about 70% of it.
There is a smelter being built in the US at the moment, and we’re hopeful we’ll be able to conclude a deal with them soon for a bit of diversification. If we get to that, we’ll be very pleased. But right now, everything goes to China.
What is Alphamin’s view on the outlook for the tin price?
Eoin O’Driscoll: Owing to our grade, we’re a very low-cost producer, so in some ways we’re tin price agnostic. We’re essentially debt-free and low cost.
We’re obviously very happy with the price in the US$50,000s per tonne, and it looks to us like it’s going to be higher for longer. It does seem that marginal producers’ costs are under pressure with the diesel situation and declining grades. So we’re very bullish about the tin price, but ultimately, we’re fairly agnostic to it.
How did Alphamin perform in the third quarter of 2026, and is it on track for its production target?
Eoin O’Driscoll: EBITDA was about $170m, so it was a record quarter for us, largely driven by the tin price. Production has been very steady since April last year. We’ve been running at our target run-rate of 20,000 tonnes a year, and that is what we expect to do this year. We should be on track for that.
We’ve done just about 5,000 tonnes in each of the first three quarters and remain on track for 5,000 tonnes in Q4. That will be our first year at the fully expanded 20,000 tonne rate, which is very exciting for the company.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Verbal fillers, false starts and minor repetitions have been removed from the interviewee’s responses only. Punctuation, spelling and formatting have also been standardised in line with Edison house style. No substantive changes have been made to the meaning of the discussion
