Cornish Metals

Cornish Metals received a £28.6m shareholder loan from the National Wealth Fund on 15 May 2026 as part of a £52m financing package to advance the restart of the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall, with a final investment decision targeted for summer 2026 and production by 2028 . The NWF loan is subordinated to senior project debt, reflecting the NWF's willingness to absorb the development risk that private mining finance will not price at acceptable rates for a project on the UK Critical Minerals list.

Cornish Metals is a TSX-V and AIM-listed Canadian-British mining company focused on the South Crofty project near Camborne, Cornwall. South Crofty is the last remnant of a Cornish tin-mining industry that once supplied a significant share of global tin; the mine was closed by Consolidated Tin in 1998 and has missed five previous restart windows across 27 years. Cornish Metals acquired the project in 2016 and has spent subsequent years completing underground dewatering, environmental permitting, and feasibility studies. The £52m financing, of which the NWF supplies just over half, is the largest single financing commitment the project has attracted.

South Crofty sits on the UK Critical Minerals list because the UK imports 100% of its refined tin, which is load-bearing for semiconductor packaging, solder and renewable-energy components. A successful production restart would make the UK the only Western European source of mined tin, directly relevant to the EU Critical Raw Materials Act's domestic-sourcing targets and to UK Government supply-chain sovereignty ambitions. The NWF's involvement signals that state credit is being used to absorb the national-security premium on tin supply that no private mining fund will internalise at commercial timescales.