Corridors
One corridor, built properly
Nigeria into Dubai. A corridor needs its own document set, its own clearing practice and its own verified providers on both legs, and getting one right is worth more than claiming several.
Open means the document set, the clearing practice and verified providers on both legs are all in place — not that we intend to get there.
What a corridor has to have before it is one
A corridor is not a route on a map. It is three things that either exist between two places or do not, and a trade fails at whichever one is missing.
Its own document set
Different companies and different corridors require different papers, in a different order. A hand-carried consignment travels on a passport, a flight ticket, an export licence, a tax receipt, an assay certificate and an origin declaration; air freight swaps two of those for a packing list and an air waybill. The corridor decides the set, and the consignment records which one applied.
Its own clearing practice
Knowing the list is not the same as knowing how the list is actually cleared — which office, in what order, against which reading of the rule. This is the part that takes months, and the part that cannot be read out of a regulation.
Verified providers on both legs
A laboratory, a carrier, a clearing agent, an insurer and a vault at each end, each verified on the same terms as any other company and engaged on a specific consignment. A corridor with providers on only one leg is a route, not a corridor.
How a consignment is opened, worked and closed is the same in any corridor — that sequence is set out on how it works .
Nigeria into Dubai — open
The origin leg is where the material is produced and where it leaves. These are the areas the work is concentrated in, and why each of them.
Verification takes days. A corridor takes months. Start the one that is in your control — a company anywhere can verify, take membership and post on the board today, whether or not Nelum has built the route its material will travel.
- Zamfara and Kebbi
The deepest artisanal gold production in the country, and the reason formalisation here is a public-health question as much as a commercial one.
- Osun and Kaduna
Established artisanal output alongside licensed operators, and the states where formalisation is furthest along.
- Niger State and the Middle Belt
Growing production with documentation practice that varies most between operators — which is exactly what a shared record is for.
- Lagos and Abuja
Where the material leaves. Licensed export, hand-carry and freight, and the clearing practice the whole corridor depends on.
- The destination leg
Intake, the outturn assay, and both parties' confirmations against the tolerance in the contract. Providers on this leg verify and are engaged on a specific consignment in the same way as providers anywhere else.
What the consignment carries
Five hands between the pit and the refinery gate. At every hand-off the metal keeps its value and the evidence loses some, because the evidence travels in a mailbox and the metal does not — so each party files what it holds, against the consignment, as it happens.
01
Origin
Origin declaration and weigh-in record, filed by a producing company that completed business verification before it could post anything.
Origin is recorded as a gap when a lot leaves it unstated.
02
Laboratory
Pre-shipment assay and sample photographs, from a laboratory engaged on the consignment that sees only the lots its work touches.
The outturn assay at the far end is read against the same contract tolerance.
03
Export and clearance
Export licence, tax receipt, packing list and customs clearance. This is the part of the set the corridor decides, and the part the clearing practice exists to move.
Doré cannot lawfully leave Nigeria; the export book is bullion.
04
Carrier
Air waybill for freight, or passport and ticket where the consignment is hand-carried, with the insurance certificate covering it in transit.
Two shipping methods, two document sets, one record.
05
Refinery intake
Outturn assay and both parties' confirmations, after which the consignment is completed once every party confirms, with every document, every version and every timestamp kept.
Corrections stay readable rather than replacing what they corrected.
Questions about corridors
- Can I only trade along a corridor Nelum has built?
No. The board is open to any member company wherever it is, and a consignment is run by its parties — no order of operations is imposed once a consignment is open, because every company runs its trade its own way. What a built corridor adds is that the document set and the clearing practice are known in advance rather than discovered at an airport.
- Which corridor opens next?
We do not name one until the three things above are in place for it, so there is nothing to announce here. If a route matters to your business, tell us — that is the input that decides the order they are built in.
- What happens if a document the corridor needs is missing?
The counterparty adds a slot for it on the consignment, so what is outstanding is a visible list rather than an assumption. Anything already filed is there to read, and a replacement becomes a new version without deleting the old one.
- We provide services on one of these legs. How do we join?
Verify as a service provider and you can be engaged on specific consignments through a request for quotation. Laboratories, vaults, carriers, clearing agents and insurers see only the lots their work touches.
- Does Nelum move the metal or hold the money?
No. Nelum is not a party to your transaction: it moves no material and holds no funds. Settlement is arranged with your own banks, and we take no commission on what you trade.
Start with the part that is in your control
Verification takes days and does not wait on a corridor. Register your company, complete it once, and trade with counterparties who have done the same.