A group of former metals traders at world-leading intermediary Glencore (GLEN.L) announced plans this week to introduce an “eBay style” online platform, called Open Mineral, to connect buyers and sellers of mineral concentrates in the mining business. They hope to modernize how concentrates are marketed worldwide and disrupt global sales in the process.

Such an online platform will allow miners of zinc, lead, copper, gold and silver to post their product which, in turn, can be browsed for direct purchase by buyers in the smelting industry around the world. That will be a big change from how concentrates are sold today with the bulk of purchases from mines currently made by trading houses like Glencore — which then look to re-market concentrates to final end users.

Right now, traders such as Glencore use their industry contacts to search out concentrates they know fit their clients’ needs but an online platform like Open Mineral could render that function obsolete — by allowing smelters to directly see what concentrates are available globally. 

Such technology is being driven by another big change in global commodities: the rise of blockchain, the electronic tracking mechanism that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Blockchain tech allows for tracking and certification of concentrate batches as they’re sold and moved around the world making it easier for buyers and sellers to connect and trust each other and that could allow online platforms for direct sales to succeed to a greater degree than ever before.

Watch for the official launch of Open Mineral in August — and we’ll see what the response is from the industry in terms of sales volumes

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