Caspin pairs tin and gold projects to deliver multiple pathways to mining success

• Caspin is confident that its flagship Bygoo tin project is already a winner
• Project already has high-grade tin resource the company is looking to raise further
• Weethalle gold project acquired as secondary opportunity ready for immediate drilling

It is not unusual for companies to spin off secondary or non-core assets into new vehicles, particularly when they have just accepted a takeover offer and their suitor is only interested in the flagship project.

This was exactly the case with Cassini Resources, which was acquired by its West Musgrave nickel-copper project partner Oz Minerals – a deal which allowed Cassini shareholders to about double their money if they held on to the Oz Minerals shares they gained given its subsequent acquisition by BHP (ASX:BHP).

What’s relevant for us in this little tale is Cassini’s two other nickel-copper-PGE projects, which were bundled together under a new company, Caspin Resources (ASX:CPN), which listed in November 2020.

Besides the projects, Caspin also inherited the bulk of Cassini’s board.

“I was a former director of Cassini, as was Jon Hronsky and our company secretary Steve Wood,” managing director Gregory Miles told Stockhead.

“And then into that mix, Justin Tremain was introduced to us, he initially started as a non-executive director and became our chairman in August 2023.

“Jon’s a well-known geologist. He runs his own consultancy, consults all around the world and has an Order of Australia medal for his services to the mining industry.

“He’s a very capable director and he also provides consulting services to the company from time to time as well.”

Tremain is a major player as well. He’s the managing director of Turaco Gold (ASX:TCG), a West African gold developer in Côte d’Ivoire which has had a “tremendous run” over the last two years, culminating in its crowning at Best Emerging Company at the 2025 Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie.

Moving into tin

While Yarawindah Brook and Mount Squires are promising projects in their own right, strong headwinds against nickel and, until recently, PGEs have prompted a shift in focus.

The search was on for another project that fit Caspin’s skillset, and a tin deposit in New South Wales was a standout. The critical metal, an essential ingredient in solder, is fetching close to record prices of ~US$35,000/t.

“The Bygoo tin project came to us through our network and we established very quickly that it was a really good fit for us in terms of our capabilities and expertise,” Miles said.

“There hadn’t been a lot of exploration prior to our involvement, but what work had been done showed excellent high-grade tin results.

“Anything over 1% really captured our imagination and you’ve got to bear in mind that the tin price is roughly about three times the copper price.

“So we just did some simple sort of comparisons on that basis.”

Miles added that after looking at the near-surface historical exploration results, the company was “pretty confident” that it was looking at economic or even very economic grades.

It moved quickly, first with an option agreement in September 2024, then by finalising the acquisition in December 2024.

Market outlook

While it is yet to fully capture the imagination of investors, the tin market is among the most exposed to future-facing thematics like electrification and AI.

“I think one of the other things about tin is the market has fantastic fundamentals because it is used in anything electrified,” he noted.

“The primary use for tin is in solder, so it’s the glue that holds all our circuitry together. People use it every day and don’t even think about it.

“It’s a widely used commodity that has no real substitute and it is has got a very good short to long term future in front of it.”

Anything electric, be it electric vehicles, solar panels or AI data centres, requires tin.

“But there’s only a small handful of companies with primary tin assets on the ASX so it’s quite easy to stand out. There isn’t a lot of competition,” Miles said.

“When it turns, it is going to turn in a massive way because there is just not a lot of opportunity for people to get involved in the sector.”

Adding interest, most tin production comes from Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, leaving Australia in the unique position of being one of the only Western world sources of tin.

“In the current geopolitical environment, that’s a pretty interesting opportunity as well,” Miles said.

“So, great commodity to be involved in with a really good outlook.”

Caspin recently defined a maiden resource of 3.94Mt grading 0.5% tin at the Kelpie deposit within the Bygoo project using a large database of historical and recent drilling totalling 275 holes for more than 20,000m.

This is limited only by drilling with the company establishing a large exploration target of between 12Mt and 20Mt at a grade range of 0.35-0.5% tin that could deliver resource growth with more holes.

That the exploration target only considers extensions to Kelpie, which makes up just 5% of the ~20km prospective granite horizon, highlights the potential for more to be found.

More recently, the company completed initial ore sorting work that proved Kelpie material is amendable to the process with the tech upgrading high-grade feed by about three times with 71% mass rejection and low-grade feed by approximately six times with 92% mass rejection.

Other projects

While Bygoo is unquestionably the main focus for Caspin, it is not stopping the company from searching for a second string to add to its bow.

This led to it reaching an option agreement to acquire 80% of the 310km2 Weethalle gold project that’s just “up the road” from Bygoo and is believed to host a large-scale intrusive related gold target.

Weethalle contains many historical gold workings, dating back to the 1930s, the most significant production being from the Euratha mine.

However, despite being a short distance from significant historical gold production at West Wyalong and very large gold endowment at the Lake Cowal gold mine, it has not received any meaningful exploration for decades.

Highlighting its potential, historical mining returned grades of up to 5oz/t gold plus silver, while rock chip sampling returned up to 64.5g/t gold.

Recent induced polarisation work has also defined an undrilled 2000m-long geophysical target.

Miles noted that prior to its acquisition by Caspin, Weethalle was worked up by a couple of really experienced geologists and geophysicists.

“They did a fantastic job of initially identifying the opportunity and then confirming the prospectivity for an intrusive-related gold system,” he said.

“What appealed to us is that it’s in essentially the same geology as what we’re dealing with at Bygoo.

“At Bygoo, we’re essentially dealing with intrusive-related tin systems. With Weethalle, it is an intrusive-related gold system, so we’ve got a lot of applicable skills that we can use to explore that project.

“I guess what I feel most important from an investor’s point of view is that it’s ready to be drilled now, and we can’t wait to go and drill the first hole into this really large IP geophysical anomaly.”

He added that the sampling from surface had shown indications of gold beneath the surface making Weethalle a “wonderful opportunity” that provides short-term sizzle to the emerging Bygoo tin project development.

Next steps

From here, Caspin’s next step is to carry out about 1200m of reverse circulation drilling at the Weethalle project to test the coincident IP and geochemical anomalies.

This is considered to be an appropriate program given the option agreement.

Miles said the company considered Weethalle to be a great exploration opportunity in any gold price environment.

“From my point of view, the fact that gold is at an all-time high is an absolute bonus, and that will no doubt attract people to our stock.” He added.

Once that’s completed, the company will move on to infill and step-out drilling at Bygoo to expand resources.

“It’s a reasonably modest program, but we can get a lot of bang for our buck there. (We’re) doing some reconnaissance type drilling at some other interesting targets around Kelpie but also elsewhere in the project area, such as a prospect we’re working up called Ardlethan East, next door to the Ardlethan mine,” Miles said.

While Bygoo is the flagship, Westhalle provided potential investors with “a very cheap option on what could also be a really interesting gold discovery”.

“I think in exploration you want as many rolls of the dice as you possibly can get. It’s about risk management so the more rolls of those dice you get, the more chance you have of success,” he said.

“I think Bygoo is a winner already. If we do have a win with Weethalle, well that just sets up the company beautifully.”

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Caspin Resources is a Stockhead advertiser, they did not sponsor this article.