Mining chemicals
This is the page where we tell you what we will not do, first.
Sodium cyanide and sodium chlorate are legitimate, essential industrial chemicals with well-established supply chains and long safety records. They are also the two lines in this book where the wrong counterparty is not a commercial disappointment. The compliance file comes before the indication — not after it, and not alongside it.
The gate
Four things established before a price exists.
We trade these lines with mining operators and licensed distributors, and with nobody else. That is not a preference we can be talked out of on volume.
- 1 · Verified end use
- The operation, the process, the site. For cyanide that means a named mine or plant with a leaching circuit, not a purchasing entity in a different country from any orebody. Where the buyer is a distributor, the end user is identified behind them.
- 2 · Import licence and permitting
- In place at the destination before shipment, not applied for after fixture. Most jurisdictions that permit cyanide import at all control it tightly, and the permit is the transaction's foundation.
- 3 · Site handling capability
- Unloading arrangement, storage, mixing facility, emergency response, antidote provision and trained personnel. A site that cannot describe how it will receive the consignment is a site that should not receive it.
- 4 · Counterparty and origin screening
- Per consignment, not once at onboarding. Sanctions, ownership, and the route the goods will take.
Sodium cyanide
The reagent that made low-grade gold mining viable, and the one that has to be handled perfectly.
Cyanide leaching has been the dominant gold and silver extraction route for over a century because it recovers metal from ore grades nothing else can reach economically. There is no drop-in replacement at scale. Handled to the standard the industry has built, it is safe; handled casually, it is not, and the industry knows which incidents made the news.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Forms supplied | Solid briquettes, and solution. Briquettes travel and store better; solution removes the dissolving step at the mine and requires the receiving infrastructure to match. |
| Transport classification | UN 1689, Class 6.1, Packing Group I — the most severe packing group in the toxic class. |
| Packaging | Solid in sealed, lined containers within a sealed shipping container, designed so the product is not exposed until it reaches the mixing facility. Solution in dedicated isotainers. Emergency response documentation accompanies every consignment. |
| Specification | Assay as NaCN, free alkali, chloride, carbonate, insolubles and moisture. Free alkali matters more than buyers expect — it is what keeps the material stable in storage and stops hydrogen cyanide evolving. |
| Industry framework | The International Cyanide Management Code is the industry standard covering production, transport and use in gold mining, with independent third-party auditing of certified operations. Where a buyer is a Code signatory, the chain has to hold together across every link — and we would rather supply into that chain than around it. |
Cyanide and acid must never meet. Contact between cyanide and any acid generates hydrogen cyanide gas, which is lethal at low concentration and gives very little warning. Segregation in stowage, in storage and in spill containment is absolute — not a best practice, a hard rule. Where a buyer takes both cyanide and mineral acids from us, the consignments are planned separately and the segregation position is stated in writing on both.
Sodium chlorate
An oxidiser whose hazard is what it does to everything around it.
Sodium chlorate is not itself combustible. It supplies oxygen to anything that is, which is why a chlorate spill onto a wooden pallet, a cardboard box, an oily rag or a bag of sawdust turns those things into a fire that is very difficult to put out.
- Forms supplied
- Crystal and solution. Solution is the normal form for a pulp mill generating chlorine dioxide on site; crystal is supplied where the receiving site dissolves it.
- Principal use
- Generation of chlorine dioxide for pulp bleaching — the elemental-chlorine-free route that replaced chlorine bleaching. Also used in some uranium and metal processing circuits.
- Transport classification
- UN 1495, Class 5.1 oxidising substance. Segregation from combustible materials, organics and reducing agents, in transport and in store.
- Specification
- Assay, chloride, chromate, sulphate, and for solution the concentration and crystallisation temperature — a solution that crystallises in a cold transit leg arrives as a problem rather than as a product.
- Explosives precursor status
- Sodium chlorate is an Annex I restricted explosives precursor in the EU at a limit value of 40% w/w, and unlike the acids there is no licensing route for supply to the general public above that limit. Supply is to professional users with a demonstrable business need, with suspicious transaction reporting and record retention as required.
- Not a herbicide, and not sold as one
- Sodium chlorate's approval as a plant protection product was withdrawn in the EU and it must not be supplied for that purpose. Enquiries framed as weed control are declined.
Transport
Classification, segregation and the response plan, in writing before booking.
- Classification confirmed per consignment
- UN number, class, packing group, IMDG / ADR / RID status, tank or packaging code and segregation group — confirmed in writing rather than carried over from a previous shipment.
- Segregation
- Cyanide from acids, absolutely. Chlorate from combustibles, organics and reducing agents. Segregation applies to the stow, to the yard, to the truck and to the store, and a compliant stow plan that becomes a non-compliant yard on arrival has solved nothing.
- Route and transit countries
- Some transit jurisdictions restrict or prohibit these movements independently of the origin and destination. The route is checked, not assumed.
- Emergency response
- Documentation with every consignment in the languages of transit and destination, with a monitored 24-hour contact. For cyanide, the receiving site's antidote and medical arrangements are confirmed as part of the handling assessment rather than left to the site's own assurance.
- Security in transit
- Sealed containers, seal numbers recorded and reconciled at destination, and any seal discrepancy treated as an incident rather than as paperwork.
Straight answer
What it is not, said before you find out.
- This is not a spot commodity and we do not treat it as one
- There is no version of this trade that moves at the speed of an opportunistic enquiry. If the timeline assumes the compliance file can run alongside the fixture, the timeline is wrong.
- We do not sell to an intermediary who will not name the end user
- “Confidential buyer” ends the conversation on these two lines. It is a reasonable position on many commodities. It is not a reasonable position on cyanide.
- We will not split a consignment to an unassessed party
- Re-selling part of a cargo to a buyer who has not been through the same assessment defeats the assessment. Where a contract permits onward sale, the onward buyer is screened too.
- A safety data sheet is not a handling capability
- Every enquiry can produce an SDS. Far fewer can describe their unloading arrangement, their storage segregation, their spill response and their antidote provision. We ask for the second, and the answer is what decides the trade.
- Certification does not travel by association
- A producer's certification covers the producer. A transporter's covers the transporter. Nobody's certification covers the mine's practice on the day, and we will not imply that it does.
- We decline more of these enquiries than we accept
- That is the intended outcome, not a failure of the desk. If you are a qualified operator, it is also the reason to work with us rather than with whoever answers fastest.
How to specify
What an enquiry needs to be answerable.
- 1 · Product and form
- Sodium cyanide briquette or solution; sodium chlorate crystal or solution, with the concentration.
- 2 · End user and site
- The named operation, the process, and the country. If you are a distributor, the end user behind you.
- 3 · Permit position
- Import licence status at the destination and, where applicable, transit permits.
- 4 · Site handling
- Unloading, storage, segregation, mixing facility, emergency response, antidote provision, trained personnel.
- 5 · Specification
- Assay and the impurity limits your circuit needs, with test methods.
- 6 · Quantity and pattern
- Parcel size and whether this is a single consignment or a term supply. These lines reward a programme and penalise ad hoc buying.
- 7 · Delivery basis and route
- Port of discharge, inland leg, and who takes responsibility at which point.
- 8 · Timing
- Realistic, allowing for the permit and assessment work rather than assuming it is instant.
Documentation
What travels with the goods.
- Batch certificate of analysis
- Issued by the producing plant against the agreed parameters and test methods, tied to the consignment.
- Safety data sheet
- In the destination's required format and language — REACH / CLP for the EU, GHS-aligned elsewhere — supplied in advance for permitting, not only with the goods.
- Dangerous goods documentation
- Declaration with UN number, class, packing group, packaging or tank code, segregation requirements and the emergency response information, per modal regulation.
- Licences and permits
- Import licence, transit permits where required, and the end-user documentation supporting them.
- Independent inspection
- Where contracted, an agency appointed for the consignment — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly, verifying quantity, packaging integrity, seal numbers and container condition, with sampling under supervision where the contract provides for it.
- Chain of custody
- Seal numbers recorded at loading and reconciled at discharge, with any discrepancy escalated as an incident.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.