Unlike Ireland, with its world-class zinc deposits, the rest of the British Isles aren’t really mining industry powerhouse when it comes to mineral endowment.
True, there’s still coal all over the place, but in most cases it’s still cheaper to ship it in – that is if coal is even wanted at all anymore.
And there’s sundry quarrying operations here and there.
But mining, not so much.
Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that it was possible to say there were no listed companies with operating mines anywhere in Britain.
Now, though, a quiet renaissance is getting underway.
Yes, it’s small scale at present, and yes the companies that are at the forefront of the renaissance are small too.
But, as they say - from tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow.
Not surprisingly, the mining renaissance is at its strongest in the West Country of England, an area with a tradition of mining going back hundreds of years, and where the landscape is still dotted with old headframes and stacks from days of old.
The biggest news in recent weeks has come out of Cornwall, where a major fundraise has just been undertaken by Cornish Metals with a view to de-watering the old South Crofty tin mine. The de-watering itself ought not to be too much of a complex undertaking, and once it’s completed, the plan is to put South Crofty back into operation.
If successful - and with tin prices riding high there’s no reason to assume it won’t be – the resumption of operations at South Crofty will be a huge economic and symbolic boost for Cornwall, and the wider mining industry in Britain.
It’s no exaggeration to say that South Crofty is iconic in the mining industry, and if it can be brought back into production it will send a clear signal that Britain is open for the business of mining.
The context is well enough known: Brexit, combined with a trend to resources nationalism the world over and an uncertain global economic outlook all add up to a government that’s falling over itself to encourage indigenous industry.
Post-Brexit treaty obligations have complicated stipulations about where certain minerals ought to be sourced from in relation to the automobile manufacturing industry and others, and more generally, the promise was that Brexit would make things better. To do that, there needs to be greater, not lesser economic activity.
So, the government is broadly supportive of new initiatives in mining, notwithstanding that it couldn’t quite stomach the task of bailing out Sirius Minerals when its proposed Woodsmith mine came unstuck in all sorts of ways.
Sirius, though, was attempting an engineering project more suited to the deep pockets of a major miner than an independent, and what’s more it was attempting to mine a product that no-one had even demonstrated there was a market for. The new owners of Woodsmith, Anglo American, are bravely pressing ahead, and if it works it’ll be another feather in the cap of British mining. If it doesn’t – well, most industry-watchers have written the project off anyway.
In this instance, then government seems to have made the right call in letter the private sector sort things out on its own. Indeed, that’s the approach across the board, really, and it stands in stark contrast to the way things used to be done before it all fell apart in the 1970s.
No more heavy subsidies and union power. Instead, what we have now is a meaningful attempt to keep the bureaucracy to the minimum, and to get out of the way.
Companies like Cornish Lithium, which is pioneering new techniques of lithium exploration and extraction just a stone’s throw away from South Crofty, are only too glad to speak of the support that government is providing.
And between them, in the long run, Cornish Metals and Cornish Lithium look likely to be at the forefront of the UK’s mining renaissance. Cornish Metals will re-start tin production, and may yet deliver a meaningful copper project at United Downs, while Cornish Lithium will lead the way in lithium production, both from brines and hard rock deposits.
That being said, other companies, like British Lithium, Cornish Tin and Strategic Minerals are following hard in their wake.
British Lithium – also with support from the government – is well advanced in its plans to mine Cornish granites for lithium, and Cornish Tin Limited holds what would be the third highest grading tin mine in the world if it were in operation.
Strategic Minerals has a significant tin-tungsten project inside its local subsidiary, Cornwall Resources.
And to the east of all those, Tungsten West continues with its plans to restart operations at the currently mothballed Hemerdon mine, undeterred by inflation.
And it’s not just about the West Country, either.
In Scotland, Scotgold continues to produce relatively small quantities of gold and occasionally to release updates about the highly prospective wider land package that it holds around its mine in the Grampians. Is there meaningful nickel to be found in Scotland? – there just might be.
There's certainly copper in Anglesey, as Anglesey Mining has consistently demonstrated, and some zinc and other metals too. And new plans for its extraction are currently being drawn up.
Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea, in Northern Ireland Galantas and Dalradian continue to fly the flag for gold mining, although Dalradian in particular has run into significant local opposition.
At the moment, none of this amounts to a significant chunk of GDP. But the benefits to local economies are already beginning to be felt. Plenty of new jobs have been created by Scotgold’s operations at Cononish, which is why the locals wanted the company there in the first place. And that’s a pattern that could be repeated elsewhere.
After all, Cornwall is currently one of the poorest areas in the UK. If mining gets underway there again in a serious way, that could change, and fast.