For refiners
Intake you can still evidence at your next audit
A refinery is judged on what it can show about where its material came from, not on what it believes. Nelum holds that evidence against the lot, filed by the party who produced it, from the moment a producer is verified to the moment the outturn assay is agreed.
Nelum does not perform, replace, or substitute for an accredited audit, and describing a standard is not a claim to certify anyone against it. What we hold are the records an auditor asks for, already assembled.
Why artisanal material is refused rather than assessed
None of these is a failure of diligence by the refinery. They are properties of how small-lot material reaches a refinery gate, and each of them is a records problem wearing a commercial disguise.
Diligence that costs more than the lot is worth
Accredited refiners largely refuse artisanal material because the due-diligence cost of a small lot exceeds its margin. The work is the same whether the parcel is forty kilograms or four hundred, so the small parcel is declined — and the material goes somewhere nobody is looking.
The cost falls because the evidence is assembled as the material moves rather than reconstructed at the gate. Verification of the producing company happens once, before it can post anything; origin, assay and shipping documents attach to the parcel as each party files them. What arrives at intake is a lot with its file, not a lot and a request for one.
Market access is the enforcement mechanism
The London Bullion Market Association's Responsible Gold Guidance sets the standard refiners must meet to remain on the Good Delivery List. A refiner that cannot meet it does not simply face criticism — its gold stops being accepted by the financial markets that set the price.
That pressure travels backwards down the chain, and it is why a refinery ends up asking its suppliers for evidence its suppliers have never been asked for before. Here the asking happens on the consignment: a party asks on the record for what it cannot see, the holder answers, and what has already been shared is there to read rather than to chase.
Aggregated paperwork
Aggregating small-scale production into a refinery intake is normal. Aggregating its paperwork is not acceptable, and the distinction matters more than it first appears — a merged lot record defeats the purpose of five-step due diligence and would not survive review.
On Nelum a lot keeps its identity. Lots can be merged, and the lot that results records every lot it came from, so provenance stays a set of named origins rather than one merged record. Where an origin is not linked, the record shows the gap rather than filling it.
The outturn argument
The assay decides the commercial outcome, and it is where trades break down. Pre-shipment assays establish what is being sent; outturn assays at the refinery establish what arrived, and the difference between them is the argument — usually conducted by email, between two parties each holding half the evidence.
Both assays are filed against the lot on the consignment, each by the party that produced it and each with its own version. A correction is visible as a correction: replacing a document makes a new version and leaves the earlier one on the record.
What arrives with a lot
A consignment passes through 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.
Nelum attaches the evidence to the parcel instead. Each party files what it holds, against the lots it concerns, as it happens.
Nelum gives no verdict on a document. Where it reads one, it only asks the member to check a figure that looks wrong. The label the uploader picks is what both sides see, and the suggested list is a convenience rather than a constraint — anything the corridor actually requires can be named and filed.
- 01 · Origin
Origin declaration and weigh-in record, filed against the lot. Where the producer's lot is not linked, the lot carries a declared origin with its evidence, or the record shows the gap.
- 02 · Laboratory
Pre-shipment assay and sample photographs. An independent laboratory is engaged through a request for quotation and sees only what the consignment's owner assigns to its task — the lots to assay, not who mined them or what they cost.
- 03 · Export and clearance
Export licence, tax receipt, packing list and customs clearance — the set the corridor requires, recorded as the set that actually applied.
- 04 · Carrier
Air waybill, or passport and ticket where the consignment is hand-carried, with the insurance certificate covering it in transit.
- 05 · Refinery intake
Outturn assay and the parties' confirmations. The consignment completes only when every active party has confirmed, and every document and every earlier version stays on the record.
What this gives a due-diligence file
The OECD five-step framework and the LBMA guidance built on it are risk-based: they ask what you identified, what you did about it, and what you can show. Each of these is what the record answers with.
A chain of custody that is documented, not asserted
The documented sequence of parties who held material from origin to refinery is what allows a refiner to state where an intake came from. Its value collapses if any link is undocumented, so a link the record does not know is shown as a gap, never filled in.
Counterparties checked before they could trade
Incorporation, ownership and control, beneficial owners, and sanctions and PEP screening, completed before a company can post or respond. A two-person mining company clears the same check as a refining group.
Every origin carried through a merge
Lots merge and split, and every lot that results carries all the lots it came from. A bar's provenance is the set it was drawn from, never a single source it cannot claim.
Risk that surfaces in the negotiation
A document nobody mentioned is the one that holds up clearance, and it usually surfaces at the airport. Asks are made on the consignment, in writing, and answered by the party that holds the document, so what is missing is a visible list rather than an assumption.
A file that is still there in five years
When a compliance function, an auditor or a tax authority asks how a specific parcel reached your refinery, the answer is the consignment's history rather than a search of four mailboxes and a shared drive.
The five steps, the CAHRA definition and what CRAFT asks of a producer are set out in full on our OECD due diligence page .
Getting to a first intake
Verification takes days. Everything after it is the work you do with your counterparties, with the paperwork in one place.
01
Verify the refinery
Incorporation, ownership and control, beneficial owners, and identity checks on the people who can commit the company. Done once, and visible to every verified counterparty afterwards.
Verification is not charged. Each seat at the company carries one role: holder, manager, trader, operator or reader.
02
Post what you need
Commodity, quantity, purity, delivery terms and the price basis — an absolute figure, or a discount to a named benchmark. Post it to the board as a non-binding Offer of Intent, or privately to your connections.
A private offer is visible only to your accepted connections.
03
Work the consignment in one place
Ask for documents, read what has been shared with you, engage a laboratory through a request for quotation, and keep both assays on the lot.
The consignment completes when every active party has confirmed.
Questions refineries ask
- Is this different from your buyers page?
It is the same board and the same verification. This page answers the question a refinery asks first — whether a lot can be accepted and still evidenced at audit — where the buyers page answers how to find material and terms worth taking.
- Does Nelum certify or audit our sourcing?
No. We describe frameworks published by the OECD, the LBMA and other bodies because they govern this trade, and Nelum is not accredited by, a member of, or endorsed by any of them. We hold records; your auditor reaches their own conclusion from them.
- Where does the assay come from?
From an independent laboratory or refinery, never from us. Verification tells you a company's registration documents were checked and its representative's identity confirmed at a point in time. It is not a credit assessment, not a guarantee of performance, and not a warranty about any consignment.
- Can we bring our own laboratory or vault?
Yes. Service providers verify on the same terms as anyone else and are engaged through a request for quotation on a consignment; a direct invitation is a request with one recipient. They see only what you assign to their task.
- What do sellers see about us?
Your company, country, verification status and how long you have been registered, along with the commercial terms you post — that is the point of posting. Not your verification documents, not your other requirements, and nothing on a consignment beyond what has been shared with them.
- What does it cost?
One membership per company, billed monthly; the figures are on the pricing page. Identity and company checks are not charged. Never a percentage of what you trade. Nelum is not a party to your transaction and takes no commission, brokerage or success fee.
Put your intake on a record
Register, complete verification once, and start receiving offers only from producing companies that have been checked as thoroughly as you have.