Supply chain · critical minerals
Where is the lot, and whose number is it?
A critical mineral is mined in one country and refined in another more often than not. Between the mine gate and the refined product the records thin out: the mine's assay, the carrier's manifest, the customs filing, the refinery's intake weight and the refinery's assay are each a different party's number for the same lot. EOS keeps every number with its date and its source, shows where they disagree instead of blending them, names the stage and the jurisdiction each lot is in, and routes a contested lot to the person who can settle it.
What we can give you
Refinery status for every lot you own or have sold forward, drawn from the systems that already touch it, with the chain of custody from the mine gate to the settlement, every figure traced to the dated record that produced it, and every disagreement between the mine's number and someone else's kept in view until a named person settles it.
Five records of one lot, read where they are kept. The figure is illustrative; the parties and systems are those a lot ordinarily passes through, not a statement about any company.
What it lets you confirm
- Where each lot is, and in whose custody. The stage is the latest dated record in the chain: mined, concentrated, in transit, at customs, at the refinery, refining, refined, returned or sold. A lot with no refinery record is not assumed received.
- How much of your material is inside a refinery in another jurisdiction. Tonnage at or inside a refinery outside the origin country, summed from the lots, with the formula on the card.
- Whether the parties agree on what the lot weighs. The mine gate weight against the carrier's declared tonnage and the refinery's received weight, the delta computed and shown, contested when it exceeds the tolerance your contract sets.
- Whether the parties agree on what the lot grades. The mine's assay against the refinery's, the difference in points, the umpire named by the contract when they disagree.
- Which documents are outstanding. A certificate of origin, an export permit, an umpire assay, a provisional settlement not yet final, each a line on the lot until the record arrives.
- That a reported figure can be substantiated. Every number opens to the system, the record and the timestamp that produced it; a number that cannot is marked unsubstantiated.
The gap, named
The stretch between the mine gate and the refined product is where custody evidence is thinnest and where the numbers belong to parties with their own incentives. Weights move with moisture and sampling; assays move with method and laboratory; manifests are declared, not weighed; and a refinery's intake record is the only record of the lot until the product is released. A system that averages these into one figure hides exactly the disagreement a buyer, a lender or a regulator will later ask about. EOS does the opposite: it keeps every party's figure with its date, computes the deltas in the open, applies the tolerances your contract already sets, and routes each contested lot to the person who can settle it, recording the settlement with both figures kept.
Super Intelligence (SI) proposes the next question on a contested lot (an umpire assay, a re-weigh, a customs follow-up, a settlement hold) and names the person with authority to ask it; it does not decide, and it never fills a missing record with an estimate.
Five questions a serious buyer asks, and the answers
1. Can you see the lot after it leaves the country?
To the edge of the records. The refinery's intake portal, its status feed and its assay are read where the refinery exposes them; the customs broker's filings and the carrier's manifests are read where you hold them. Where a party gives no record, the chain shows the gap and says so, which is itself a finding.
2. Can you distinguish fact from inference?
Every figure carries one of seven labels: observed, derived, inferred, scenario, decision, action, outcome. A weight read from a record is observed; a loss computed from two records is derived and shows its calculation; anything a model concludes is inferred until a record substantiates it.
3. Do you compute transit and processing losses?
Yes, as derived figures with the formula shown, against the tolerances your contract sets, never against a tolerance we invented. A loss beyond tolerance is contested, not explained away.
4. Does it work with our offtake contracts and settlements?
The settlement record closes the chain: provisional against final, the quotational period, the payable metal, each read from the contract and the treasury record. A settlement that does not reconcile to the refinery's final assay is a disagreement like any other.
5. Can we use it without replacing anything?
That is the design. Nerio never writes to a system of record and never asks you to move data out of one; it reads, reconciles and routes. Your mine ERP, your assay system, your forwarder's portal and your refinery's feed stay what they are.
A simulated findingSimulated. Not a customer. Every figure is synthetic and labeled as such.
A producer with lots at six refineries in five countries. In the first reconciliation pass EOS found two contested lots and one with documents outstanding, each with both parties' figures kept.
| The disagreement | The evidence | What management changed | 90 days later (modeled) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A lithium concentrate lot weighed 10,240 dry tonnes at the mine gate and 10,062 at the converter; the mine assayed 5.9% and the converter 5.6%. | Mine gate record Aug 14; converter intake Sep 11; mine assay Aug 13; converter assay Sep 12; the contract's umpire clause. | Invoked the umpire assay under the contract; held the provisional settlement at the mine's figure until the umpire reported. | Settled on the umpire's figure with both original assays on the record; the loss tolerance in the next contract written from the measured history. |
| A rare earth concentrate lot weighed 2,400 tonnes at the mine gate and the carrier's manifest declared 2,350. | Mine gate record Sep 28; manifest Sep 30; no intake record yet. | Asked the forwarder for the draft survey before arrival; the delta recorded as open, not as a loss. | The intake weight matched the gate within tolerance; the manifest was corrected at source and the correction read back from the record. |
| A cobalt hydroxide lot at the port with a certificate of origin and an export permit renewal outstanding. | Customs broker filing Oct 1; permit expiry in the permit record; no refinery record. | Routed the permit renewal to the person who holds it, with the lot and the date on the record. | Cleared; the days at the port measured and attributed to the missing document, which is now a check before loading. |
This is the shape, not a claim. The same lots are in the platform demo: Critical minerals custody under Supply Intelligence, read-only, on the synthetic tenant. A real engagement starts with the EOS Target Opportunity Assessment ($15,000) that connects read-only to your estate and writes the targets your finance function can audit, then the $50,000 pilot with the assessment credited in full; the $35,000 balance is fully refunded if the mutually agreed target is not achieved by day 90. Request an assessment The commercial model. Industrial operations in EOS. Supply chain in EOS.