ABSTRACT
While international organizations and financial institutions were active in aspects of minerals activities, their focus has changed over the past few decades. The structure of the minerals industry appears complicated and disparate. Miners feed product to smelters and refiners, who in turn provide metals or mineral products to fabricators, and so on. Artisanal and small-scale mining plays an important role in some minerals, especially gold and gemstones. The larger base-metal mines sell concentrates directly to a smelter, often within the same vertically integrated company. Smaller mines typically sell concentrate to a trader who consolidates product from several sources to create the volume and quality that is acceptable to smelters. Refined metal product may also be either sold directly to fabricators or marketed through metals traders.
