On Wednesday, the price of tin, which has rebounded from a month’s low, was $55,301 a tonne. Tin prices are up 36 per cent year-to-date and nearly 70 per cent year-on-year.  | Photo Credit: istock.com

A sharp rise in demand for tin from the semiconductor industry, on the heels of a surge in artificial intelligence (AI) capital expenditure (capex), will likely keep the metal’s price elevated this year.

“Our Technology team forecasts $785 billionn in AI capex for 2026, amid strong demand for data centres and higher costs related to investments into GPUs (graphic processing units), CPUs (central processing units) and memory chips,” said research agency BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions. 

“Over the medium to long term, tight fundamentals and AI-driven demand continue to support an upward shift in the price baseline, though the market must first digest inventory levels and macroeconomic pressures in the near term,” said Chinese commodity data group Sunsirs. 

Price forecast

On Wednesday, the price of tin, which has rebounded from a month’s low, was $55,301 a tonne. Tin prices are up 36 per cent year-to-date and nearly 70 per cent year-on-year. 

As of June 12, tin prices completed a cycle of extreme volatility, characterised by a surge to a peak, a subsequent rout, and a rebound. A short-term tug-of-war in the price is on between resistance from moving averages and support from essential demand, said Sunsirs, adding that price fluctuation remains the dominant trend. 

BMI said: “We have revised our annual average tin price forecast for 2026 to $49,000/tonne from $45,000 as prices have set off on an unprecedented rally.” 

Tom Langston, senior market analyst at the International Tin Association (ITA), said having gained 10.9 per cent during May, tin reached another record high of $57,725 early this month. “Macroeconomic factors, together with heightened investor activity in China, have been the primary drivers of prices so far in 2026, largely overshadowing underlying market fundamentals,” he said.

Weak Indonesian exports

BMI expects prices to remain elevated in 2026, with strong investor sentiment and continued supply shortages, though the second half of the year is likely to see some moderation in tin prices as supply issues moderate slightly.

The research agency said Indonesian tin exports have started to normalise as of May 2026, after declining in 2024 and 2025 amid an intensified government clampdown on illegal mining, heightened environmental scrutiny and corruption charges against ex-employees of major producer PT Timah. 

“In Q1 2026, PT Timah recorded a staggering operational and financial turnaround, with refined tin production surging 81.9 per cent year-on-year to 5,630 tonnes,” it said.

Langston said that despite an easing of major supply-side pressures in the first quarter, weak Indonesian exports in April and May, coupled with stalling progress in the recovery of mining in Myanmar’s Wa region, underpinned the recent rally. 

Sunsirs said the resumption of tin mining operations in Myanmar’s Wa State, the ban on which drove up the metal’s price from the second half of 2025, has significantly underperformed expectations.

 Problems elsewhere

“To date, due to constraints such as operational restrictions, delays in material approvals, and the onset of the rainy season, production capacity at the Man Maw tin mine has recovered to only 40-50 per cent of pre-ban levels,” it said. 

The May-July rainy season is further curbing open-pit mining and transportation, leaving limited room for short-term output growth, the Chinese commodity data group said.

BMI, quoting co-operator Metals X, said outside of Indonesia and Myanmar, Malaysia’s MSC announced disrupted tin output and warned of potential production shortages following an unexpected gas pipeline explosion incident near its facility. 

In May 2026, Minsur in Peru reported Q1 output of 8,314 tonnes of refined tin from its Pisco smelter, down 2.9 per cent year-on-year. The Renison mine in Tasmania also saw production of 2,887 tonnes of tin-in-concentrate in Q1 2026, down 13 per cent from the previous quarter.

Sunsirs said in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), transport of approximately 6 per cent of the Bisie mine’s tin output has been disrupted.

Low stocks

In its outlook for the second quarter, Sucden Financial said while recent inventory builds eased prompt tightness, limited depth left the market vulnerable to renewed squeezes. 

“Near-term direction remains heavily dependent on supply outcomes in Indonesia and Myanmar, with risks still skewed toward episodes of re-tightening,” it said. 

BMI said that on the demand side, economic activity globally has shown resilience despite being subdued as compared with periods of high growth. However, its Country Risk team forecasts global GDP growth of 2.4 per cent in 2026, down from 2.8 per cent in 2025.

On the other hand, global tin stocks remain low, and this exposes the tin market to bouts of volatility, the research agency said, adding that. as of May 2026, tin stocks started to decline slightly on both the the London Metal Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange.

Published on June 17, 2026