Column: Demand weakness helps cushion tin from supply problems
Tin demand last year was weaker than expected and is on course for only a modest recovery in 2024, according to the International Tin Association.
MineHub Technologies says that the MineHub platform has been used by two of the largest companies in the mining and metals industry, BHP and China Minmetals, in the first cross-border copper concentrate trial shipment processed on blockchain technology.
In 2020, BHP completed the first iron ore blockchain transaction, but this was the first transaction of its kind for copper concentrates.
At present, the settlement process of copper concentrates is lengthy and complex, suffers from high processing costs, complex pricing mechanisms and vulnerability to errors and fraud. As traded volumes of copper concentrate have doubled in recent years in the largest market (China), market participants urgently need a safe, stable, efficient, and real-time data sharing system platform.
The end-to-end post-trade process for this shipment between BHP and Minmetals was completed on the blockchain platform and included the use of several MineHub innovations: blockchain-based assay exchange, including final assay determination; carbon emissions data sharing (Scope 1, 2 and 3); and using MineHub node hosted in mainland China to ensure local data residence.
MineHub enables operations teams to collaborate with each other as well as their banks, service and logistics providers on the basis of shared, real-time data. Data privacy, integrity and control are secured by enterprise blockchain technology.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
