Is your company having a hard time determining whether the materials you use contain “conflict minerals” that were mined in the war-torn Congo? Well, it seems the government can’t classify smelters and refiners as conflict-free either.
The U.S. Department of Commerce this week released a long-delayed list of “all known conflict mineral processing facilities worldwide,” The 400-plus list of global locations includes all known facilities that process the minerals tin, tantalum, tungsten, or gold. It stops short, however, of indicating whether a specific facility processes minerals that are used to finance conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining country. “We do not have the ability to distinguish such facilities,” an introduction to the list says.
