PANGKAL PINANG, Indonesia, April 15 (Reuters) - Tin miners on Indonesia's main tin-producing islands of Bangka-Belitung have resumed work at offshore mines after heavy rains ended, which may lift tin exports for April, industry officials said on Thursday.
Indonesia's refined tin exports in March fell nearly 41 percent to 6,576.01 tonnes from a year ago because of slow demand and as heavy rains hampered mining. [ID:nJAK412516]
Individual miners have operated their makeshift dredges along the coastline of Bangka-Belitung island with the easing of the monsoon rains, which had lasted from December to March.
"Weather has been favourable, improving tin ore supply from traditional miners," said Johan Murod, director for PT Bangka-Belitung Timah Sejahtera, a consortium of seven smelters.
The seven members of the consortium, which have a combined capacity of around 2,800 tonnes a month, was now operating at 40 percent capacity as the tin ore supplies increased, compared with 20 percent in February-March when rains were heavier.
All small smelters on the islands off Sumatra depend on small-scale traditional miners for about 80 percent of their ore supply.
With the easing in the monsoon rains, tin exports in April may recover to about 7,000 tonnes or more, said Peter Kettle, manager of statistics and market studies at ITRI, an international tin industry group based in Britain, on Tuesday.
State miner PT Timah Tbk (TINS.JK), the world's largest integrated tin miner, also has more dredges operating at offshore mines thanks to the better weather, said Wirtsa Firdaus, Timah's spokesman in Bangka-Belitung.
The firm operates seven dredges in Riau waters off Sumatra island and four dredges in Bangka water, Firdaus said. In the monsoon season, it had four dredges in Riau and two in Bangka.
"We still have three more dredges that are not in operation due to regular maintenance work," Firdaus said.
Timah planned to boost offshore mining by increasing the number of dredges this year, in order to increase tin output.
Over the past four years, the tin industry in Indonesia's main tin-producing islands of Bangka-Belitung, off Sumatra, has been hit by weaker tin prices, a police crackdown on illegal mining, and the depletion of easily mined onshore reserves.
Tin for three-month delivery MSN3 on the London Metal Exchange stood at $18,975 a tonne on Thursday, up nearly 12 percent so far this year.
But it was trading about 26 percent below the all-time high of $25,500 a tonne which was hit in May 2008. (Additional reporting by Fitri Wulandari; Editing by Sara Webb)
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