Malaysia looks deeper into offshore tin mining<\/p>\n
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Malaysia may revive plans to mine tin
\nfrom its seabed as good tin ore on land becomes harder to find,
\nan industry body said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Once the world's largest tin miner, now producing a fraction
\nof global supply, Malaysia is striving to retain its output of
\nthe metal and offshore mining may be the option to pursue, the
\nMalaysian Chamber of Mines (MCM) said.<\/p>\n
\"There is a chance that you may see, during this year, the
\nopening of an offshore mining project,\" Muhammad Muhammad Nor,
\nexecutive secretary of the MCM, told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
He said offshore mining, common in Thailand and Indonesia, was
\nsomething Malaysia has been mulling for years after tin deposits
\nwere found off the coast of Lumut in northern Perak, the
\ncountry's top mining state.<\/p>\n
But the idea never took off as every prospector wanted a
\nmonopoly on the deposits, he said.<\/p>\n
Muhammad said Perak has now identified a party it could lease
\noffshore mining rights to and that group was in talks with
\nIndonesia's P.T. Timah Tbk to acquire expertise. Timah is the
\nworld's largest integrated tin producer.<\/p>\n
Muhammad said traces of tin ore had also been found off the
\ncoast of the southwestern Malacca state, which like Perak, is
\nalong the Strait of Malacca.<\/p>\n
Other offshore locations believed to contain tin are on the
\nSouth China Sea facing the southern Johor and eastern Terengganu
\nstates, he said.<\/p>\n
But the start of offshore mining will depend on the quantity
\nof tin on the seabed and whether it can be extracted without
\nundue environmental effects.<\/p>\n
\"It's a question of economics,\" Muhammad said.<\/p>\n
\"They have done the studies but it's very difficult to say
\nwhether there are enough deposits and how long they will remain
\nin one place,\" he said, adding that movement of sand varied
\ngreatly in water.<\/p>\n
Malaysia's tin production for 2000 has not been officially
\ntallied but Muhammad estimated the figure at around 6,500 tons
\ncompared to 7,340 tons in 1999.<\/p>\n
The fall was due to the closure of one of the two tin mining
\ndredges in the country for several months last year, he said.<\/p>\n
Local tin prices averaged 20,470 ringgit ($5,386) a ton
\ncompared to 20,200 ringgit in 1999. Friday's closing price for
\nspot tin on the Kuala Lumpur Tin Market was $5,005 a ton.<\/p>\n
Both production and prices may get a boost in the current year
\n, partly due to a global shift towards using more tin in solder
\ncompounds, Muhammad said.<\/p>",
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