For miners
Get verified. Get seen. Get paid on your material's actual worth.
Artisanal and small-scale production is priced down for a reason that has nothing to do with the metal: nobody downstream can prove where it came from. Verification and a document record close that gap, and verification is not charged.
10,125
active mineral titles on Nigeria’s 2026 NMCO register
4,129
companies hold them — from two-person operations to refining groups
Hold one of them? Verification is not charged.
What the current chain costs you
Every step between a producer and a refinery takes a margin, and most of those margins are payment for uncertainty rather than for work.
You sell to whoever turns up
A producing miner typically has one realistic buyer: the aggregator who comes to the site. There is no second quote to compare against, so there is no way to know whether the discount being offered is the market or simply what this buyer prefers to pay.
A published intent is seen by every verified buyer on the platform at once — refiners and trading houses included. You are not obliged to accept any of it. But you find out what your material is actually worth before you sell it.
The discount widens on the way up the chain
Each intermediary takes a margin, and each one is priced for the risk of not knowing where the material came from. That uncertainty is expensive, and it is paid for at the bottom of the chain — by you.
Verification removes part of that risk before anyone quotes. A buyer looking at a verified producer with a document record is pricing metal, not pricing the chance that the paperwork is fiction.
Nobody can prove where the material came from
A refiner has to answer, to its own compliance function and its auditors, where every intake originated. If the answer is unclear, the parcel is refused — or accepted at a discount that reflects the doubt.
The consignment record carries the evidence: origin, assay, export licence, tax receipt, whatever the corridor requires, filed against the lot by the party who holds it and shared with the buyer as its holder chooses.
You are asked for the same documents every time
Each new buyer starts from zero: company registration, licence, identity of the person signing, and a fresh round of scepticism about all three.
Verification is done once, at the company. After that your status travels with you across the platform, shown to every counterparty who reads your company.
Verification is the equaliser
The point of checking every company is not to keep small producers out. It is that once everyone is checked, size stops being the thing a buyer has to fall back on.
- The same check for everyone
A two-person mining company and a refining group complete the same business verification. Registration, ownership and control, and sanctions screening — there is no lighter check for smaller companies, and no faster one for larger ones.
- The same board
Your supply appears on the marketplace beside everyone else's, listed by date rather than by the size of the company posting it. Buyers filter by commodity, quantity, country and delivery terms. Not by whether they have heard of you.
- The same record
The document space, versioning and the audit trail are the same for every member company, whatever its size — a record only some counterparties can produce would be worth nothing to anyone.
- The same protection
Your verification documents are not shown to other companies. Buyers see your verification status, country and how long you have been registered.
Responsible sourcing, without being designed out of it
Due-diligence requirements are often experienced by producers as a reason they were excluded. The frameworks themselves say the opposite.
Formalisation, not exclusion
OECD guidance is explicit that legitimate artisanal production should be brought into formal supply chains rather than cut out of them. Disengagement pushes production into informal channels; it does not improve conditions at the mine.
CRAFT and progressive improvement
The CRAFT code recognises that ASM producers improve over time and allows for engagement while that improvement is under way. A record of what was documented, and when, is what makes progress legible to a buyer.
Every origin kept through a merge
When lots are merged, the lot that results records every lot it came from, so each producer's origin stays on the record rather than disappearing into a pooled one.
Your evidence, not our certificate
Nelum does not certify origin or quality, and would be worth less if it pretended to. What it does is hold the evidence you and your counterparty produce, in a form that neither side can quietly alter afterwards.
Read more on the OECD five-step framework and how it applies to material from conflict-affected and high-risk areas.
Four steps, and you are on the board
Nothing here needs a consultant, a lawyer, or a trip to a capital city.
01
Register the company
The company is the account, not the person. One or two people can run it; roles decide who is allowed to commit it.
Verification is not charged. Membership is monthly by card, with seats included.
02
Complete verification
Registration documents, and the identity of each person who will act for the company. Screening runs in the background.
Done once, then it travels with you.
03
Post what you hold
Commodity, quantity, purity, origin, and the price basis — a discount to a named benchmark, or an absolute figure. Set an expiry so a stale offer stops attracting attention.
One-off or recurring, if you produce steadily.
04
Answer responses, keep the record
Responses to an intent are stated positions — accept, partial, counter or enquiry — and none of them binds anyone. To work with a buyer, start a consignment from the conversation: upload what you have, and the buyer can ask for anything missing.
Every party confirms when it is finished.
Practical questions
- We are small. Is there a minimum volume?
No. There is no floor on quantity and no minimum trade size, because the buyers on the platform are not all refiners — trading houses and exporters buy in the volumes producers actually hold.
- Our internet is unreliable and we work from phones.
The platform works on a phone. Documents can be photographed and uploaded from the field, and there is nothing that has to be completed in one sitting — an intent or an upload can be finished later.
- We do not have every document a buyer asks for.
Then you say so. An ask for a document is made on the consignment in writing and answered there, so a missing document is a conversation rather than a silent failure. Buyers in this market know what ASM paperwork looks like.
- Can our export agent act for us?
Yes — invite them to a seat at your company with one role, such as trader or reader. They pass their own identity check before the seat opens, and you can revoke the seat.
- What does it cost?
One company membership, monthly by card, with seats included, and never a percentage of what you sell — we are not a party to your trade and take no cut of it. Verification is not charged.
- Who sees our production volumes?
Only what you publish, and only to verified companies. You can also send an intent privately to your connections instead of posting it publicly.
Get your company verified
Verification is free, done once, and travels with you. Post what you hold and let verified buyers come to the terms rather than to the relationship.