JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – One of the major subjects the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) talked to governments about at the Investing in African Mining Indaba was how to move an informal gold mining landscape to a formal one.

“What you otherwise find is that the informal becomes illegal, which becomes criminal and can lead to tragedy, such as at Stillfontein,” LBMA CEO Ruth Crowell remarked to Mining Weekly in an interview.

Much better, in her view, is to have the conversation around how informal miners can be formally embedded in the economy and she expressed excitement about the World Bank doing exactly that in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa.

“We’ve seen models in Peru where you’re taking informal artisanal and small-scale ASM miners and giving them formality and licence to operate on some parts of concessions, and it seems that model is being replicated in Côte d'Ivoire and we’d like to encourage it and hope it can happen in other major producing countries like Ghana and Senegal,” Crowell remarked.

“When the informal becomes illegal the Mr Bigs can take advantage. If you can give other options to people, they’re going to make that good business and that’s going to be the choice.

“I think a challenge around the world is that the gold business has been good business. But we need to work both from a law-enforcement perspective and also a market dynamic perspective to make that business good business, and to incentivise miners to become formalised to see the benefits.”

In January, LBMA launched a digital database for gold bars to improve transparency in the precious metals market, and is expecting all LBMA-accredited refineries to come on board in 2025.

The LBMA's 'good delivery' list includes 66 gold refiners, including South Africa's Rand Refinery in Germiston, and 82 silver refiners around the globe, which must source gold responsibly under the accreditation requirements that give them access to the London hub, the world's largest for over-the-counter gold trading.

LBMA chief technical officer Neil Harby, who was also at the Mining Indaba, pointed out to Mining Weekly that up to 20% of the world's gold supply is from ASM sources and does not come through the LBMA good delivery rule structure.

What can be termed scrap gold or recycled gold is often ASM gold transported and converted in another country and brought back as legitimate recycled gold. Much supply chain work has thus been done on the true definition of recycled, scrap or preconsumer and post-consumer gold.

“There’s been a lot of collaborative work on that throughout the industry to make sure that the gold coming into the supply chain is correctly identified for what it is, where it has come from, and not trying to pass itself off as something else,” Harby outlined.

LBMA, which has 174 member companies across 23 countries, is a trade association, representing the London market for gold and silver bullion with a global client base. This includes the majority of the gold-holding central banks, private-sector investors, mining companies, producers, refiners and fabricators.