Tag Archives: LuNa Smelter

Minery to use Minespider blockchain platform for commodity trading traceability

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Minery, a Brazil-based mineral commodity trading marketplace, is adding digital traceability to its platform using Minespider’s blockchain platform.

The integration offers additional assurance about the provenance of the minerals for sale and the immutability of the data, as well as ensuring that trades are secure, Minespider says.

Minery’s goal is to overhaul an inefficient mineral trading system with a completely digital marketplace.

Minespider explained: “Due to the opaque nature of global supply chains, traders often buy and sell minerals at substantial premiums and negotiations can take up to six months. Minery’s platform has the potential to greatly reduce these fees and improve liquidity for mines, who can expect a more consistent cash flow.”

Minery’s Co-founder & CEO, Eduardo Gama, said: “We are very excited about Minery’s partnership with Minespider. We believe that traceability is part of the future we are building, adding value to miners who work sustainably, respecting the environment and the people involved. With Minespider’s blockchain technology and Minery’s certification process, everyone will be able to know where their everyday metals came from and under what conditions they were produced.”

Founded in Brazil, a country over 9,415 active mines, Minery aims to promote small and medium-sized mining companies by helping them to sell more effectively on the global market. It has developed Certimine, a certification that ensures all mines comply with international standards.

The use of protective equipment, lack of environmental contamination, machinery and permits are just a few of the factors that registered Minery technicians verify on-site as part of the certification process. In this way, every mineral producer featured on Minery will be certified and every buyer can track the origin of their minerals, and the conditions under which they were produced.

Minery has three mines currently certified and hopes to certify five more in the next two-to-three-months, a spokesperson told IM.

Minespider, meanwhile, has built a public, permissioned blockchain specially designed for raw material traceability. Its clients, including Minsur and LuNa Smelter, create blockchain-secured digital IDs called digital Product Passports to track their material shipments downstream. These passports contain information such as provenance data, due diligence documents and carbon emissions data.

Beyond this, companies can utilise Minespider’s API to build on top of the Minespider blockchain.

“This means marketplaces like Minery benefit from the security, immutability and transparency of a blockchain, without having to build their own or have any blockchain development knowledge,” Minespider said. “This enables companies to add blockchain records to existing software applications or business processes, and design completely new business models.”

Minespider Founder and CEO, Nathan Williams, said: “Marketplaces, traders and exchanges are realising their value to global supply chains is far greater than arbitrage. They play a pivotal role in handling, distribution, market making, and now traceability and responsible sourcing. We’re pleased to announce this integration with Minery as the start of a wave of blockchain traceability adoption by the mid-tier of the supply chain.”

Minespider to provide responsible mineral tracking for LuNa Smelter

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Minespider, a blockchain protocol for responsible mineral tracking, and LuNa Smelter, a responsible tin producer in Kigali, Rwanda, have partnered to implement Minespider’s OreSource tool, starting this month.

OreSource, which is being developed under the grant awarded to Minespider by EIT Raw Materials earlier this year, is a blockchain-based due diligence tool for mines and smelters, helping them to capture key information that European Union importers require to comply with the new EU Conflict Mineral Regulation, coming into force in January 2021.

Smelters upload the data required into a digital blockchain certificate and, by affixing a QR code to a mineral shipment, or to an invoice, the recipients of the materials receive all the data they need to ensure their compliance with the EU regulation, secured on Minespider’s public blockchain protocol.

LuNa is the first Responsible Minerals Assurance Process conformant tin smelter in Africa, producing high-quality tin ingots and other minerals recovered from the refining process, such as tantalum concentrate, Minespider says. The ore is partially procured from LuNa’s own operational sites, as well as third parties who are compliant with LuNa’s strict internal environmental and social standards.

LuNa Smelter will pilot OreSource in Rwanda, together with the support and guidance of the Responsible Minerals Initiative and Rwandan Mines, Petroleum, and Gas Board (RMB).

“The industry is still unsure about how to comply with the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation,” Olena Wiaderna, Director of Sustainability and Supply Chain Due Diligence at LuNa Smelter, said. “OreSource will give us a tool to provide the information that is required, and help European importers collect the required data.”

RMB sees the project as an important step in redesigning the mining industry and transforming mining resources into key drivers of the country’s growth, according to Minespider.

“The board has already deployed different due diligence measures, including the development of tag managers at mining sites to seal and track the minerals extracted,” Minespider added. “This maintains the transparency of the supply chains and reduces the risk of potential illegal trade in minerals.”

RMB believes that this digital identification of minerals may offer upstream companies more direct compensation in exchange for demonstrating responsible mining practices, while optimising the actual cost.

Francis Gatare, the CEO of RMB, said: “This comes as a confirmation to what we have always known: Rwanda is a conflict-free source of minerals, and, by LuNa Smelter pioneering blockchain in minerals tracking in Rwanda, we’re taking another big step forward for the Rwandan mining sector.”

Google will provide input and offer industry expertise to ensure OreSource is aligned with importer and manufacturer requirements, Minespider said.

The pair have previously implemented a traceability project, tracking tin from the mine to the end user, along with other consortium members such as Volkswagen, and the Peruvian mining company Minsur.

“The cooperation with LuNa Smelter and Minespider will further Google’s engagement in responsible sourcing practices for 3TGs in the Great Lakes region,” Minespider said.

Nathan Williams, Minespider’s CEO, explained: “Historically, companies like LuNa Smelter, who pioneer responsible sourcing in exceptionally challenging environments, have been at a disadvantage. Their due diligence incurs costs that are not reflected in the world market’s metal prices. OreSource gives such companies the opportunity to stand out, and to provide their customers due diligence information as an additional service.”