| Cardinality | Technical term | Business term | Description | Usage note | Semantic data type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1..1 | icglrId | ICGLR Identification Number | A unique mine site identification number to be used at the level of ICGLR member states | Unique combination of digits and letters from the standard Latin alphabet, automatically generated (see details below) | Identifier |
| 1..1 | addressCountry | Country | The country where the Mine Site is located | ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 — two-letter country codes | Identifier |
| 1..1 | nationalId | National Identification Number | A unique mine site identification number at the level of the country | Identifier | |
| 1..1 | certificationStatus | Certification status | The current status of the mine: Certified (Green), un-Certified (Red), Yellow-Flagged, Not inspected (Blue) | Should be: 1, 2, 3 (corresponding to Green, Yellow, Red) and 0 can be used additionally for new mines which were not yet inspected. A site has a blue status either because it is not yet inspected or because the validity (green status) has expired after one year and the Government has not yet inspected the mine site. However, the blue status can be valid for 3 years otherwise the mine site turns red. | MDC.01 Certification Status |
| 1..1 | activityStatus | Activity status | Mining Activity Status (Active, Non-active, Abandoned) | 1 – active, 2 – non-active, 0 – abandoned | MDC.02 Mining Activity Status |
| 1..1 | mineSiteLocation | Mine Site Location | Geographic location of the mine site | MD.08 Mine Site Location | |
| 1..n | mineral | Minerals | The type or types of Mineral(s) produced at the mine, including Designated Minerals | Takes values strictly from the HS Code classification. In case of a designated mineral, takes value from the list of 4 values: 7108.12.00 (Gold), 2609.00.00 (Cassiterite), 2611.00.00 (Wolframite), 2615.90.00 (Coltan) | MDC.03 Mineral |
| 1..n | license | License | Group of terms describing the license and its details | Every mine site has a License field, even when the mine site is unlicensed. This is illustrated by the license type attribute of License entity. | MD.02 License |
| 1..1 | owner | Owner | Owner of the mine site | MD.04 Business Entity | |
| 0..n | operator | Operator | The identification and full details of the Mine Operator/s if different from the owner | MD.04 Business Entity | |
| 0..n | inspection | Inspection | History of inspections | MD.07 Inspection | |
| 0..n | statusChange | Status change | The history of status changes | Status history change | MD.10 Status History |
Mine Site Identification Number Format #
The format of the Mine Site Identification Number needs to be established such as to allow unequivocal identification of the mine site in the ICGLR Regional Minerals Database. According to the RCM, the obligation of keeping a Mine Site list is established at the level of the member country, with the Identification number being a required field. However, there are no expressed rules on how the identifiers should be formatted.
Mine site related information is updated by the member country whenever the attributes related to the mine site are changed, such as:
- When the Certification Status is changed
- When the Activity Status is changed
- When the associated Licenses are changed
- When the owner is changed
- When a new inspection occurs
Therefore when data is transmitted from Country to ICGLR, the mine site needs to be clearly identifiable.
Identification should not require the processing through a technical system, since as of 2025 it is not feasible to consider a technical uniformity of the way to register data at the country level. Thus, the convention of establishing identifiers should be “offline-friendly”.
Therefore, the Mine Site Identification number should be stored in exactly the same way at the country level and ICGLR level, with the country initially transmitting the full mine site record, and subsequently updating the required information that might change, allowing a direct identification of the record based on the ID.
As such, we can say that the Mine Site Identification Number is actually an “ICGLR Mine Site Identification Number”, since the scope of its usage is for the exchange and storage in the context of ICGLR. Countries that want to use the ICGLR core data model for their own national general database of mine sites might choose to extend the model with a “National identification number”, which might follow specific nationally regulated rules.
The ICGLR Mine Site Identification Number should be independent of any possible change of the value of any attribute that can be prone to update.
The following format approach was proposed to the Technical Committee during the meeting held in Lusaka, 18–19 March 2025, and accepted as a working variant:
Proposed Format
CC-[Lat]-[Long]-NNNNN
RW-1.9641+30.0619-12345
Where [Lat] and [Long] are geocoordinates given following WGS 84 format, specifically in decimal degree format with 4 decimals. Geolocalization of mine sites using geocoordinates is already a requirement of the RCM, therefore the coordinates are already part of the mine site record. Using them does not create an additional effort for the person or system that creates the identifier, it allows automatic generation of identifier and provides certain uniqueness.
The recommendation of storing geocoordinates in the RMD is according to WGS 84 with 4 decimals, not using cardinal points (N/S/W/E). Since the mine site identifier is a string which for technical processing purposes should not include spaces, the format using geocoordinates with no cardinal points (RW-1.9641+30.0619-12345) is an optimal solution, as it provides certain uniqueness and can be validated directly by the content of the record, using the required geocoordinates elements.
Mine Site Attribute Formatting Observations #
The Certification Status attribute takes a value, according to the RCM, from the following possibilities: Certified (Green), un-Certified (Red), or Yellow-Flagged.
As the list of mine sites should be managed at national level, and the countries might want to use the same format and eventually the same technical storage or data registry for their general use in order to standardize the data formats and procedures at country level, a 4th value might be useful, that would designate a mine that was not yet inspected for certification, or that does not fall under the scope of the RCM. From the RCM perspective, a non-inspected mine site behaves equivalent to an un-Certified one, however, the specific separate status designation might be useful for the country.
Coding and storing of values should not be textual, but should be mapped to a discrete, numeric (integer) set of values. Textual storage can induce confusion, given that the ICGLR countries use 4 official main languages — thus a “Green” (G) status in English is “Vert” in French and “Verde” in Portuguese.
Language-independent integer-based status can be 1 for Green, 2 for Yellow, 3 for Red, and 0 for Uninspected or Out of RCM scope mine site. As the integer correspondence of statuses is a convention, another equivalent variant (3 for Green etc) can also be valid if expressed as a standard code list.
