Supply Chains — Precious Metals

Artisanal gold, from pit to Good Delivery

Gold and associated precious metals move through the most audited commodity chain in the world. This is the full macro map — every custody transfer, every checkpoint, and the documents that carry provenance forward.

Mine

Custody stageOECDCRAFT

Registered artisanal miners, cooperatives, or ASM Mineral Producers (AMPs) extract the raw commodity. Under CRAFT, an AMP self-issues an annual CRAFT Report as its passport to formal markets.

Registration requirement: Proof of legal operation, location, and mining license or registration where applicable.

Documents at this stage:Mining license / proof of legal operationCRAFT Report (public summary)

The documents that carry the chain

A chain of custody is only as strong as the artifacts attached to each transfer. Four document families do the heavy lifting.

Assay records — three, not one

Purity is certified at origin, pre-export, and pre-refinery. Each assay is an independent record tied to the consignment; a single persistent "assay" field cannot represent a real formal-trade chain.

The CRAFT Report

Self-issued by the producer at least annually, documenting fulfilment of CRAFT requirements as verifiable claims. Its public summary functions as the producer's passport to formal markets.

Audit records

Mine conformance, traceability verification, third-party refinery, and chain-of-custody certification — each an event with an auditor, scope, date, and outcome, recorded separately from the actors it assesses.

Refiner compliance certification

LBMA Responsible Gold Guidance and jurisdictional regimes such as the UAE Due Diligence Regulations keep refiners on the accredited lists financial markets require.

CRAFT Code v2.1

CRAFT: the artisanal on-ramp to formal markets

The Code of Risk-mitigation for ASM engaging in Formal Trade (CRAFT), maintained by the Alliance for Responsible Mining, is a voluntary, progressive process standard aligned with the OECD Minerals Guidance. It lets legitimate artisanal producers demonstrate conformance without costly third-party audits at the mine level — producers self-assess and buyers verify, with independent third-party assurance concentrated where the OECD expects it: at the refiner and smelter pinch point.

Producers progress from Candidate (required information provided, credible evidence of legitimacy, no severe risks present) to Affiliate (all severe risks controlled, or measurable mitigation progress demonstrated within six months of commercial engagement).

Module 1

Adopting a management system

Basic record-keeping and internal responsibility — the foundation every later claim rests on.

Module 2

Legitimacy of the producer

Credible evidence that the mining operation is legal and legitimate in its jurisdiction.

Module 3

Risks requiring immediate disengagement

Severe Annex II risks — serious human rights abuses — assessed on a pass/fail basis.

Module 4

Risks requiring mitigation

Annex II risks where buyers disengage only after mitigation fails — measurable progress counts.

Module 5

High risks requiring improvement

Non-Annex II risks — safety, environment — handled as aspirational, progress-tracked goals.

Sourcing or producing artisanal gold?

Register free, get a verifiable Nelum ID, and put your position in the chain on the record — whether you mine, assay, trade, or refine.

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