The answer is that we started Minexx to bring traceability, transparency and trust to the mineral supply chains and help improve efficiency, health and safety on site and protect the environment.
Why are minerals important? Isn’t mining an old unnecessary industry? The industry of the future is technology surely?
Well minerals such as cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and gold enable technology such as smartphones, electric cars and computers to function. In fact, smartphones contain about 60 different minerals in total.
How do you meet the world’s demand for minerals whilst protecting people and planet?
The answer lies in capital for investment and semi-industrialisation. Access to capital for small mines in Africa is a major barrier to cleaner, fairer and a more transparent mineral supply chain. Mining sites in Africa need to purchase newer and better equipment to make their operations safer and more efficient.
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Currently there is no formal finance available for small-scale mining sites. The local retail banks do not serve the sector. Minexx is helping fill this gap in the market. Our finance also explicitly ties in the recipients to using the Minexx traceability and due diligence platform – increasing transparency and trust.
In terms of improving efficiency and safety in the gold extraction sector, the use of mercury in processing can cause environmental damage and damage human health. Gold recovery rates using the more traditional sluicing techniques result in very low gold capture.
The ‘UN Minamata Convention on Mercury’ came into effect in 2017. It is named after the bay in Japan where, in the mid-20th century, mercury-tainted industrial wastewater poisoned thousands of people, leading to severe long term health conditions that became known as the “Minamata disease.”
The Minamata Convention aims to control the supply of mercury, reduce its use, reduce its gasification and release; raise public awareness; and build the necessary monitoring and enforcement institutions to #MakeMercuryHistory.
Minexx is proud to support this convention and the work we do helps deliver on its aims by providing finance to small mining sites so they can buy more modern and efficient equipment to phase out the use of mercury.
The more modern mining equipment purchased with these loan funds means that more of the mineral (eg gold, tungsten and tin) is recovered, which leads to higher production to meet high demand, which leads to more money in miners’ pockets AND a safer workplace AND less negative environmental impacts.
I firmly believe Minexx can help the global mineral supply chains help meet the world’s demand for technology in a way that is fair for both people and planet.
A miner at on one of our client’s mines in Burkina Faso recently put it: “The new equipment that the loan from Minexx helped us buy, helps us waste less and produce more from the material we dig up. But more than that it is safer to use – meaning less accidents. The new equipment also means we can use less mercury which is tricky stuff to handle and can harm my fellow miners and me.”
