Tag Archives: Minsur

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.”

WEF’s MMBI makes progress on emissions traceability with blockchain proof of concept

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The World Economic Forum’s Mining and Metals Blockchain Initiative (MMBI) has released a proof of concept that uses distributed ledger technology to track embedded greenhouse gas emissions.

A collaboration between seven leading industry players and the World Economic Forum, the initiative has hit an important stage of development following its launch in October 2019, the WEF said.

The successful completion of the proof of concept, named the COT, which is a Carbon Tracing Platform, will be critical in helping to ensure traceability of emissions from mine to the final product. With a focus on end-to-end traceability, the COT platform uses distributed ledger technology to track CO2 emissions.

The founding members of the MMBI – Anglo American, Antofagasta Minerals, Eurasian Resources Group, Glencore, Klöckner & Co, Minsur, and Tata Steel – joined forces in October 2019 to design and explore blockchain solutions to accelerate responsible sourcing in the industry. By pooling resources and costs, the mining and metals companies aim to accelerate future adoption of a solution for supply chain visibility and environmental, social and governance requirements.

Developed in collaboration with industry experts, supported by the Dutch blockchain champion Kryha and Consortium Advisor Susan Joseph, it not only tests the technological feasibility of the solution, but also explores the complexities of the supply chain dynamics and sets requirements for future data use, the WEF said. In doing so, the proof of concept responds to demands from stakeholders to create ‘mine to market’ visibility and accountability.

Jörgen Sandström, Head of Mining and Metals Industry, World Economic Forum, said: “There is an increasing demand for metals and minerals, and an increasing demand for sustainable and responsible and traceable supply chains. There is a potential to create a full value chain view with downstream visibility, and, in partnering with regulators and aligning our work with robust ESG standards, sustainability certification schemes and assurance frameworks.”

This work lays the foundation for the next phase of the development and reinforces comprehensive feedback sessions with stakeholders. It also supports the MMBI vision to enable emissions traceability throughout complex supply chains and to create ‘mine to market’ visibility and accountability, it said.

Nadia Hewett, Blockchain Project Lead, World Economic Forum, added: “The distributed nature of blockchain technology enables cross-enterprise collaboration and makes it the ultimate networked technology. This opens exciting new possibilities that organisations otherwise would not have the capability to deliver on their own.”

Peter Whitcutt, Marketing CEO of Anglo American, said: “By leveraging cross-industry collaboration and the increasingly important role played by technology innovation, MMBI’s Proof of Concept can help to unlock the potential of blockchain to support a greater level of reporting transparency and drive responsible sourcing.”

Minespider looks to scale blockchain platform following fundraising

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Minespider says it has raised a total of €2.8 million ($3.05 million) to continue developing its open blockchain protocol for supply chain tracking.

The money came from combined sources, including the EU Commission’s H2020’s SME Instrument Phase 2 program.

Minespider Founder and CEO, Nathan Williams, called the successful fundraising “an immense step forward” for the company and its “vision of a future where supply chains are transparent and sustainable”.

Minespider is an open blockchain protocol founded in 2018. As a team of 10, Minespider is based in Berlin, Germany, with operations in both Switzerland and Brazil. Its platform allows companies to create digital passports for their raw materials that keep track of where the materials come from and the conditions under which they were produced. The passports contain data that allows companies to verify that the materials they receive were produced in environmentally and socially sustainable ways, according to Minespider.

“Minespider passports separate data into three different layers, depending on whether the data should be publicly visible, visible to members of the same supply chain, or private between a company and their customer,” the company explained. “This allows companies to share sensitive transparency information with their customers and others further down the supply chain securely.”

Minespider makes this possible without a single trusted company running the system, using an advanced encryption system. This means that companies using Minespider retain total control over their own data.

Since its founding, Minespider has launched several traceability projects with industry players.

In 2018, Minespider partnered with Google to create a multi-stakeholder end-to-end mineral traceability consortium for the tin supply chain. The project formally commenced in 2019, with the addition of Cisco, SGS, Volkswagen, and Peru mining company Minsur (pictured at the San Rafael tin mine here), and has successfully tracked tin end-to-end and is now planning to incorporate new members.

In spring 2019, Minespider announced a joint project with Volkswagen to track its lead battery supply chain. This ongoing circular economy project involves two-thirds of the company’s global lead supply, according to the company. “Volkswagen intends this as a first step to employ blockchain technology for additional raw materials and supply chains,” the company said.

Williams added: “It has been an amazing experience to bring together so many industry leaders to work together on traceability. Now, with the backing of the European Commission and our investors we can scale the platform, bringing on many more participants who believe in the vision of transparent and responsible products.”

Part of funding came from the Horizon 2020 programme, where the European Commission selects potentially disruptive businesses to invest in and support as part of the SME Instrument. Minespider says it was chosen as a highly innovative SME and awarded ‘Very Good to Excellent (4.5 – 5)’ for all three key assessment criteria.

Williams said: “This funding shows how ready the EU Commission is to invest in these emerging and future technologies.”

TOMRA XRT leaves its mark on Minsur San Rafael tin mine

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TOMRA Sorting Mining says Peru’s Minsur SA has felt the benefit of its X-ray Transmission (XRT) sensor-based ore sorting technology, with its San Rafael tin mine having seen an increase in reserves, plant capacity, overall recoveries and mine life since it was introduced.

Part of the Breca Group of companies, Minsur owns and operates the largest underground tin mining operation in the world, San Rafael. Located in the Eastern Mountain chain of the Andes in Peru at an altitude of 4,500-5,200 m above sea level, the mine contributed about 6% of the total world production of tin in 2015, with about 1 Mt of ore at an average grade of 2.13% mined and processed, resulting in 20,000 t of tin concentrate.

That same year, Minsur initiated a number of activities to ensure the future value of its asset, addressing challenges that included declining head grades and rising operating costs, according to TOMRA.

One of these activities involved an ore sorting project.

Started in 2015, in collaboration with TOMRA Sorting Mining, the project’s objective was to reject low-grade material in coarse particle size.

“By separating sub-economic material before entering the more cost-intensive wet processing, the project would address the bottleneck at the wet section and improve productivity by increasing the feed grade,” TOMRA explained. An added benefit expected from the project would be the longer life of the mine.

Three main factors indicated that sensor-based particle sorting for waste rejection would be effective at San Rafael:

  • The high absorption of transmitting X-rays of tin contained in cassiterite;
  • The structures of cassiterite, which are large enough to be detected by XRT technology; and
  • The significant degree of liberation of sub-economic waste on the particle level that may be subject to sensor-based particle sorting.

In order to assess the feasibility of the project, TOMRA conducted metallurgical tests on geological samples from San Rafael, followed by performance test work. The tests showed the deposit to be amenable to XRT ore sorting due to the presence of 70-80% of uneconomic particles that can be rejected over a wide size range, from 6 to 70 mm, TOMRA said.

The project was approved and, in view of the significant economic potential, was fast tracked and completed in just 14 months. TOMRA and its partner in Peru, which supplied and installed the XRT sorting system, worked closely with Minsur throughout the six-month ramp-up period.

The ore sorting project with TOMRA’s XRT system has delivered significant financial benefits from the beginning, with Minsur realising payback on its capital expenditure in just four months, according to TOMRA. In 2017, the ore sorting project contributed around 36% of Minsur’s total production with about 6,000 t of tin concentrate, the company said.

The project has reduced capital and operating costs at San Rafael in a number of ways:

  • Added value – TOMRA’s XRT sensor-based ore sorting is converting uneconomic waste material into economic ore, as material below the cutoff for the main plant can be treated with lower operating costs and converted into reserves;
  • Increased plant capacity – The main plant capacity has gone from 2,950 t/d before implementation to 3,200 t/d today, as a result of the crushing operation at the XRT sorting plant;
  • Significant improvement in the overall recovery in the main plant – from 90.5% to 92.5%. This is due to sensor-based ore sorting rejecting particles with very fine mineralised cassiterite that is too small for detection by the XRT system, resulting in higher grade and size of mineralisation;
  • Extended life-of-mine – today, about 24% of the feed to the sensor-based ore sorting plant come from low grade ore from underground, which in the past would have been below the cutoff. This increase in reserves significantly extends the life of mine;
  • Elimination of liabilities through the treatment and proper disposal of 100% of the stockpile; and
  • Decreased tailings disposal due to the sensor-based ore sorting system reducing the amount of waste by increasing the grade in the feed to the plant.

TOMRA concluded on the San Rafael case study: “The success of the project has demonstrated the high potential of TOMRA’s XRT technology, and as a result, the company plans to include XRT sensor-based ore sorting as a possible process route in all future projects.”