Tolling
Instead of building a processing plant, a mine can pay to process its ore at someone else's plant. Tolling suits small or early projects, with trade-offs.
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Tolling means paying to process your ore at someone else's plant instead of building your own.
What it is
The processing plant is often the most expensive part of a mine to build. Under a (or toll-milling) agreement, the miner trucks its ore to an existing plant owned by another company and pays a fee per tonne processed. The plant returns the concentrate or metal, or pays for it under agreed terms.
A related option is an ore sale: selling ore outright to a nearby plant owner, who takes on processing and its risks.
When it works
- Small or short-life deposits that cannot justify their own plant.
- High-grade ore that can carry the cost of trucking.
- An existing plant within trucking distance, often up to about 100–200 km by road, with spare capacity.
- Compatible ore: the plant's process must suit the ore's mineralogy.
- Early production while a project's own plant is being built, or to test the ore at scale.
Advantages
- Much lower : no plant to build.
- Faster start: production can begin in months, not years.
- Lower permitting load: no new plant or tailings facility to approve.
Disadvantages
- Toll fee and haulage: per-tonne costs are higher than in a mine's own plant.
- Less control: the timing, plant availability and processing are someone else's.
- Recovery risk: the plant may not be tuned for this ore, and may be lower. Contracts often set recovery and payment terms to manage this.
- Limited scale: production is capped by the spare capacity the plant offers.
Ranges are indicative and vary widely by deposit. This is educational material, not investment advice.
Key terms
Next in this track
CAPEXCapital expenditure is the money spent to build a mine before it earns anything, plus the money spent later to keep it running and expand it.Related articles
- RecoverabilityNot all the metal in ore can be extracted. Recovery is the share the processing plant captures, and it depends on the ore's mineralogy and the process used.Mining economics2 min read
- CAPEXCapital expenditure is the money spent to build a mine before it earns anything, plus the money spent later to keep it running and expand it.Mining economics2 min read
- Infrastructure spendPower, water, roads, ports and camps can cost as much as the mine itself. Location decides how much infrastructure a project has to build.Mining economics2 min read
Educational material only. Nothing here is investment advice or an offer to buy or sell any security or mineral interest.