OCIM is accredited as a Full Member of LBMA
This decision reinforces the relevance of OCIM’s positioning across the entire precious metals value chains.
OCIM thus becomes a gold and silver producer accredited as a full member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the independent authority for precious metals. As historically active through its physical trading and financial trading activities, OCIM is effectively a trusted leader in Peru’s licensed ASM sector through its wholly owned subsidiary Soleil Metals, which operates two processing facilities supplied with gold ore from formalized artisanal miners.
This accreditation recognizes the group’s expertise in formalizing ASM value chains, and as a participant in the LBMA’s Task Force that developed the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Toolkit. While sharing the same core principles of sustainable and responsible sourcing which underpin the independently audited relationship between large scale mines and LBMA gold refiners, this Toolkit addresses a range of issues specific to the sector, such as the presence of formal regulatory oversight and of pre-refinery aggregators, legal titles and mining licences.
More broadly, this Full Membership comes at a time when LBMA has taken a series of concrete steps designed to encourage the inclusion of gold produced by Artisanal and Small-scale Mining into mainstream supply lines, after noting that responsible sourcing programmes had unintentionally marginalised the sector due in part to rigorous sourcing standards, lack of engagement and refiners and buyers concerns about reputational risk. This ambition has already been realized through concrete steps that advance not only the governance of the sector, but also open direct market access for those who depend either wholly or in part on artisanally-produced gold for their livelihood.
“This decision strengthens our legitimacy across the precious metals ecosystem, particularly downstream in the value chain, while enabling us to actively participate in defining increasingly stringent industry standards alongside our peers”, explains Laurent Mathiot, Chairman and CEO of OCIM.
