While Stellar Resources, like any self-respecting Australian miner, has its fair share of iron ore projects, tin is where it sees its brightest, and most immediate, future.

Chief executive officer Peter Blight said the company's Heemskirk tin project, just north of Zeehan on Tasmania's west coast, already had a JORC resource on it thanks to the good work completed by previous owners and Stellar's drilling programs in 2010 and 2011.

Blight said Heemskirk contained the highest-grade tin in Australia - and the highest he had seen anywhere among undeveloped projects currently being promoted.

A potential so exciting Stellar restructured its shareholding in late January by acquiring Gippsland Ltd's interest in the joint venture, taking Stellar's ownership of Heemskirk from 60% to 100%.

With tin mining viable at 0.7%, Heemskirk's 1.1% average grade certainly sets an industry benchmark.

Blight said he expected the mine, an underground mining project, could produce 4000 tonnes of tin annually in concentrate, with a mine life of more than seven years.

"But we will be able to expand that," he said.

"The exploration potential is excellent and recent drilling has shown that tin mineralisation of good grade exists 120m beneath the Severn deposit.

"This result continues the positive momentum generated by the drilling program in 2011 and shows that the lode extends at depth in a well-defined structure.

"Future diamond drilling will seek to better define this structure and add to the Heemskirk resource estimate.

"With all this progress it is our goal to produce a 50 per cent tin concentrate, which will be exported to Indonesia or China for smelting and which will then go on to the solder and sheet metal industries.

"The tin industry needs new producers to meet future demand and Heemskirk is well placed in the development queue with a competitive cost structure."

Previously explored by Gippsland and Aberfoyle Limited, the project ground to a halt in the late 1980s when the tin price entered a lengthy downturn.

But with tin now back around $US24,000/tonne, having peaked at $33,000 in early 2011 before declining to $19,000, Blight said the mine was well and truly back in the viability band.

He said while more was always better, he would happily settle for a steady $25,000 long-term price.

The Heemskirk project is located near well-established infrastructure, including a sealed road which connects it to the port of Burnie, 150km to the north.

It is also less than 30km from four producing mines including Renison Bell, Australia's largest tin producer.

"The Renison mine provides a good geological model for exploration at Heemskirk and also represents a wealth of processing experience using similar tin ores," Blight said.

"All our drilling, work on resource appraisal and project scoping has convinced us to move into prefeasibility, not just to add confidence but also to confirm the full potential of the project."

As a trained geologist and having spent the previous 17 years with UBS as a mining analyst in the finance sector, there is no doubt Blight knows a winner when he sees one.

Spun out of Gravity Capital in 2005, his Stellar Resources brought with it a lot of South Australian tenements, but they picked up the tin opportunity in 2008.

"While we are very focused on Tasmania and tin as our spending pattern over the past 18 months shows, we have taken on some joint venture partners to keep driving the exploration work in our other projects," he said.

"One exception is the Tarcoola iron ore project in central South Australia, which is in an advanced stage of exploration.

"The project takes in the Coolybring and Hicks Hill magnetite deposits, which have a combined exploration potential in excess of 700 million tonnes.

"We expect to secure a partner to advance this project in 2012.

"We also have uranium interests including the Pirie Basin roll-front sedimentary uranium prospects, the Warrior palaeochannel deposit 60km west of Tarcoola - the largest uranium deposit discovered to date in the Gawler Craton - and Tarcoola palaeochannel uranium prospects.

"Our joint venture partner is exploring for world-class iron oxide-copper-gold deposits at several locations on the company's large ground position in the South Australian copper belt.

"On the west coast of Tasmania we are currently evaluating the potential for additional tin resources at St Dizier on the Heemskirk licence and have active exploration for tin and copper on the Ramsay, Heazelwood Hill and Whyte River licences."

But getting down to tin tacks, Blight said the other driving force behind the potential of the Heemskirk project was growing global demand for the product.

He said Indonesia's alluvial tin mining industry was the world's largest producer, followed by China, which was, not surprisingly, now the largest consumer of tin.

Other producers include countries such as Brazil, Bolivia and Peru,with small amounts coming out of central Africa.

"The fundamentals of the industry are strong, and world stocks have run down, from around 22,000 tonnes only six months ago to 9000 tonnes now," Blight added.

"Everyone talks iron ore but people are suddenly aware of the need for tin and demand has been steadily creeping up, particularly from the electronics industry."

Blight said he expected Stellar to be ready with a bankable feasibility study by the second half of 2013.

Once he has the official nod he might also start to dabble in a little alchemy, where he converts something as bland as tin into something as dazzling as gold.

*A version of this report, first published in the March 2012 edition of RESOURCESTOCKS magazine, was commissioned by Stellar Resources