Auditors who build plants

We are auditors by training. We have spent our working lives in early-stage companies, checking what was true before anyone spent money on it. That habit came with us into mining. We do not build a plant until we have verified the ground, the people and the paper behind it. When a site, a partner or a set of accounts does not hold up, we say so and walk away.

We are not miners by background, and we say so. We work with the geologists, metallurgists and plant engineers who are. What we bring is the discipline of the audit: evidence before opinion, controls before cash, and a written record of both. In a sector that has run on trust and handshakes, that discipline is the product.

The company is a Delaware corporation, run between Washington, DC and Los Angeles. The work is in the DRC and Tanzania. That is where the ground is, and so are the people who know it better than we do. We do not claim expertise we have not earned. Where we lack it, we ask, we check, and we put the answer in writing.

Our mission is to formalise artisanal mining and to resolve the supply-chain problem that comes with it. Artisanal producers work the ground across the east of the Congo. They sell into channels that no buyer can see through. We are here to replace those channels with a record: a gate, a price, a weight, an assay and a payment.

The method is simple to state. We put a processing plant and a secured purchase gate where the raw material comes out of the ground. We buy raw deliveries at the plant gate at published prices. We refine and trace the material in-house. We reinvest the margin into the next group of sites. The material pays for the security, not the state.

Formalising the producers who supply us is part of the same work, not a programme on the side. A producer who sells at our gate is registered and paid at the gate. The material enters a chain of custody that a buyer can audit. That is what we mean by resolving the supply-chain problem.

Before capital moves, we verify five things. Title: who holds the right to the ground, and whether it survives scrutiny. People: who works the site, and who they answer to. Geology: what is in the ground, tested by someone we pay, not someone selling it. Custody: how material moves from pit to gate to plant, and where it could go missing. Cash: who is paid, how much, and whether the record matches the bag.

If any of the five fails, we do not build. If all five hold, we build the plant, open the gate and publish the price. From then on the discipline is the same every day. We buy at the published price. We trace every lot from gate to refined product. We keep the record so a buyer, a lender or a regulator can check it without asking us to explain.

We refine in-house, so the material stays in our custody until it is sold. The margin from each working site goes into the next group of sites, and the five checks begin again there. We publish what we pay, we write down what we move, and we let the record be checked. That is how we would want to be audited, so it is how we work.