Tallebung Tin Project Adds Tungsten to Its Arsenal | Sky Metals | Oliver Davies (ASX: SKY)

As the Western world looks for non-Chinese supplies, Sky Metals has an abundance of both tin and tungsten at the Tallebung Project in New South Wales.

Guest bio Mr Davies joined SKY as a geologist in 2019. He was appointed to Exploration Manager in 2021, then to CEO in early 2022 and subsequently to Managing Director in September 2024. Prior to SKY, Mr Davies was in exploration and operational roles with Evolution Mining and Alkane Resources in NSW and Qld. Mr Davies has worked closely on several successful NSW discoveries including Evolution Mining’s significant expansion of the Lake Cowal gold resource and with Alkane’s regional exploration success at Tomingley and Boda.

Produced by Resource Media

The Hole Truth: Mining Investment Podcast is a product of Read Corporate.

Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions.

Key Insights

Tallebung is evolving into a dual-commodity development story. What was previously framed primarily as a tin project is increasingly being positioned around both tin and tungsten, with management indicating tungsten could contribute roughly half of future project revenue. That shift matters because Tallebung already reports tungsten in its mineral resource, and Sky says the existing flowsheet can recover both products with only a final dressing stage.

Tin’s supply-demand setup remains central to the investment case. Oliver Davies points to structural supply constraints and growing demand from electronics, data centres, solar technologies, and emerging battery applications as the core drivers behind stronger tin pricing. Sky’s broader corporate positioning is aligned with that thesis, describing tin as essential to semiconductors, electronics, and solar PV, which reinforces the strategic logic behind advancing Tallebung in New South Wales.

Tungsten adds strategic leverage to Western critical minerals supply chains. The episode highlights tungsten’s rising importance in defence and technology markets, particularly as Western buyers seek supply chains with less reliance on China. Sky’s own published Tallebung resource includes WO3 as a likely significant by-product, which gives investors exposure to a second critical mineral without fundamentally changing the project’s development pathway.

Tallebung’s open-pit, ore-sorting-led design points to a lower-cost development model. A key operational advantage discussed in the interview is the project’s shallow, open-pit geometry and the suitability of the mineralisation for XRT ore sorting followed by gravity separation. Sky states this approach can materially upgrade feed grade before concentration, supporting the company’s argument that Tallebung could become a near-term, low-cost tin development with added tungsten and silver credits.

Near-term catalysts are concentrated around resource growth and study work. The interview points to an updated mineral resource estimate and pre-feasibility study work as the main near-term newsflow, alongside ongoing drilling and metallurgical optimisation. That matches Sky’s stated project pathway of advancing drilling, resource confidence, metallurgical testing, and mining studies in parallel, giving the market several potential re-rating milestones rather than a single binary catalyst.