Yangon (Myanmar) (AFP) – One of the world’s biggest tin mines, located in an autonomous region of war-torn Myanmar, is resuming operations suspended since 2023 and ramping up exports to China, a think tank said Thursday. Tin is an element vital to the artificial intelligence industry, used as solder to attach microchips to circuit boards and bond together other electronics in data centres.
Eastern Myanmar’s Man Maw mine emerged suddenly as a global supply lynchpin in the 2010s, making the nation the world’s third-largest tin producer and the biggest supplier to China. Its abrupt closure by the powerful armed faction controlling the area coincided with the start of the AI boom, causing a price spike and a global scramble for the metal. But the International Crisis Group think tank said operations are beginning a “slow restart.” “Ore is moving again,” analysis shared with AFP said, although “output remains well below pre-suspension levels.”
China’s imports of tin ore and concentrates from Myanmar in the first half of 2026 have already surpassed 2025’s total at nearly 40,000 metric tonnes, Beijing’s customs data shows. “Satellite imagery shows large new buildings going up” around the gargantuan Man Maw site, according to Crisis Group’s report. “Night-time illumination around the site has returned to higher levels after falling sharply following the suspension,” also suggesting increased activity, it said.
Production levels are still far from Man Maw’s peak. In 2016, Myanmar supplied nearly 500,000 metric tonnes of tin ore and concentrate to China, accounting for more than 99 percent of such imports, Beijing’s customs data shows. Still, Crisis Group’s senior Asia advisor Richard Horsey told AFP there is evidence of “a steady but uneven ramp-up” at the mine. Any revival, however slow, is likely to have far-reaching implications amidst the international race to secure resources critical to AI.
Fragile supply and a production boom in data-processing microchips drove tin to record prices in January. Access to Man Maw and information about its operations is highly restricted by the ethnic minority army which controls it in the eastern state of Wa, which borders China. The United Wa State Army is one of the world’s largest non-state armed organisations, with a long history of sanctions abroad over its involvement in narcotics trafficking.
Analysts say the group’s Chinese patronage and business ties have allowed Wa State to remain relatively insulated from the civil war consuming the rest of Myanmar since a 2021 military coup. The 2023 Man Maw mine shutdown was likely caused by a jostle for control among dynastic Wa groups, the Crisis Group said, rather than armed conflict. But the facility may still face challenges to profitability, the organisation said, including flooded mine shafts and the depletion of higher-grade ore deposits.
© 2024 AFP
