TrueAtlas™ (part of TrueSource Metals™) — the interactive world map of the metals supply chain. Toggleable layers — USGS-reported country reserves for 25 metals, exchange warehouse cities, the eleven main metal-trading exchanges, top producer HQs, top mines & smelters at operator-published coordinates, major commodity ports, top dry-bulk sea routes (UNCTAD), six metals-relevant rail corridors (Trans-Sib, BAM, China–Europe, Middle Corridor, INSTC, Malmbanan), 50 LBMA Good Delivery refineries, named precious-metal vaults (LBMA London 8 + COMEX NY), 13 sovereign mints, key metals-trading free zones & freeports, and 60 mining / metallurgy universities. Every marker links to its primary publisher.
Map controls
👆 Pick one or more layers below to start. Map opens empty by design — 32 layers would be unreadable simultaneously.
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Processing
Logistics
Markets & Trade
Finance & Data
Compliance & Risk
Sustainability
Ecosystem
Storage tiers:
Region
Layer legend
Reserves bubbles
Each bubble sits at the country centroid; its radius is proportional to √(USGS-reported reserves) for the selected metal. Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026.
Storage — Tier 1 (warranted)
Exchange-warranted vaults: LME-approved warehouse cities, LBMA London bullion vaults, COMEX-approved NY metro vaults and SHFE bonded Shanghai. Public stock figures available.
Tier 4 — LBMA Good Delivery refiners with on-site vaults (Switzerland's quadriumvirate, Heraeus, Umicore, mints). Tier 5 — sovereign central-bank gold reserves (Fed NY, BoE, Bundesbank, …).
Exchanges
The eleven physical-metals trading venues that publish reference prices: LME, CME/COMEX, SHFE, SGE, TOCOM, MCX, HKEX, DGCX, Borsa Istanbul, MOEX and B3.
Producers (HQ)
Curated list of top global mining & metallurgy producers, plotted at the corporate headquarters city (not mine sites). Filtered by the metal selector — only HQs that produce the selected metal are shown. Source: each company's own corporate disclosures, aggregated in /producers/.
Mines & Smelters
Curated 30 top-tier physical assets — mines (brown triangle) and smelters/refineries (brown square) — plotted at the asset's geographic location. Filtered by the metal selector. Source: each entry links to the operator's official asset page (BHP, Rio Tinto, Codelco, Freeport, Vale, Polyus, Nornickel, Aurubis, Rusal, South32, Anglo American Platinum, Talison, Albemarle, SQM, Arcadium, Navoi, Barrick, South32, PT Timah, etc.).
Ports
20 major commodity ports plotted at their official location, with annual tonnage from port-authority reports (Pilbara Ports, Port of Rotterdam, Antwerp-Bruges, Shanghai SIPG, MPA Singapore, Transnet, Vale terminals, etc.). Each popup links to the operator's primary source.
Sea Routes
Top dry-bulk and concentrate routes for metals (iron ore, copper concentrate, bauxite) — illustrative polylines drawn along established commercial shipping lanes, not navigational. Volume estimates and route significance cite UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport 2024 and producer disclosures.
Rail Corridors
Six metals-relevant rail freight corridors at their published line geometry — Trans-Siberian, BAM, China–Europe Rail Express (CREX), Middle Corridor (TITR), INSTC and the Kiruna–Narvik Iron Ore Line (Malmbanan). Each polyline is illustrative (not navigational) and links to the operator (RZD, LKAB/Trafikverket) or the multilateral source (UIC, TITR consortium, UN ESCAP, World Bank ITF). Gauge breaks and ferry legs called out where relevant.
Refineries
50 flagship LBMA Good Delivery and LPPM-listed precious-metal refiners (Au / Ag / Pt / Pd) at facility coordinates. Each popup links to the refiner's website + the LBMA/LPPM Good Delivery list. Source: lbma.org.uk/good-delivery + lppm.com/good-delivery.
Vaults
Named precious-metal vault operators — the 8 LBMA London bullion custodians (Bank of England, Brink's, G4S, HSBC, ICBC Standard, JPM, Loomis, Malca-Amit), 6 COMEX-approved NY metro vaults, plus key Asia bullion hubs (HK, Singapore, Le Freeport) and Swiss freeports. Source: LBMA membership list + CME Group COMEX-approved precious-metal warehouses.
Mints
13 sovereign / state-owned coin-producing mints (US, Royal Canadian, Royal Mint, Perth, Monnaie de Paris, Münze Österreich, Japan Mint, China Gold Coin, South African Mint, etc.) at their production facility. Source: each mint's own official site — see /ecosystem/mints/ for the full directory.
Free Zones & Freeports
Metals-relevant free trade zones, freeports and bonded airport areas — Swiss-style freeports (Geneva, Zurich, Chiasso, Luxembourg, Singapore), Middle East commodity FTZs (DMCC, JAFZA, DAFZA), Chinese pilot FTZs (Shanghai Waigaoqiao, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Hainan), HK Airport bonded, Incheon FEZ, UK post-2021 freeports (Teesside, East, Liverpool), Trieste Free Port. Each popup links to the zone authority. Source: each zone's official authority site.
Sanctions hotspots
Country-level density of metals-relevant sanctions designations from eight primary lists (OFAC SDN, OFAC Consolidated, EU FSF, UK Sanctions List (FCDO), UN Security Council, Switzerland SECO, Canada SEMA, New Zealand MFAT). Bubble radius is proportional to √(designation count). Click a bubble for a breakdown by subject type (companies / individuals / vessels) and by issuing authority. Source: /ecosystem/sanctions/ · raw JSON: /data/sanctions/latest.json.
Carbon intensity (producer disclosures)
Verified facility-level Scope 1+2 carbon intensity from primary producer disclosures — BlueScope Port Kembla (steel, 1.44 t/t), Kamoa-Kakula (copper, 0.16 t/t), Nickel Industries HPAL Morowali (nickel, 6.97 t/t), Sibanye-Stillwater Cooke (gold, 9.98 t/oz). Marker colour = ratio vs the metal’s global average (green < 0.5× — yellow < 1×, orange < 2×, red ≥ 2×). See the Carbon Intensity Atlas table below for all sources and methodology.
Universities
60 mining engineering, extractive metallurgy and mineral-economics schools across 8 world regions — exact roster from /education/.
Storage facility classification — five tiers
A vault is a vault — but not all vaults are equally public. We classify metals storage facilities into five tiers based on which exchange warrants them, what regulator approves them, and whether daily stock figures are published. Every marker on the map links to the operator's own primary page; we never republish private stock figures.
Tier 1 — Exchange-warranted
Vaults that hold metal eligible for warrant delivery against a futures contract on a major global exchange. Daily on-warrant and cancelled-warrant stock figures are published by the exchange.
LME (18 cities · base metals), LBMA London (gold & silver), COMEX (NY metro · precious), SHFE (Shanghai · base + precious).
Primary source: exchange's own warehouse / stocks report.
Tier 2 — Exchange-approved (regional)
Vaults certified by a national or regional exchange for physical delivery of its contracts. Aggregate inventory is typically published only periodically (monthly), not in daily reports comparable to LME / COMEX.
Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), TOCOM (Japan), Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX), Borsa Istanbul Precious Metals.
Privately-operated secure vaults serving banks, ETFs, refiners and high-net-worth clients. No public stock figures. Confidentiality is part of the value proposition.
Primary source: operator's own corporate website. Use case: ETF custody, RWA token reserves (e.g. PAXG → Brink's London).
Tier 4 — Refiner vaults
LBMA Good Delivery refiners that hold metal on site as part of normal refining and casting operations. These are not third-party storage facilities — the stock there is the refiner's own work-in-progress and customer-allocated bars.
Primary source: LBMA Good Delivery List + refiner's homepage.
Tier 5 — Central-bank gold
Sovereign gold reserves held by central banks. Aggregate tonnage is reported (monthly or quarterly) but specific bar-level location is generally not disclosed; some banks hold a share abroad at the NY Fed or Bank of England.
US Mint depositories (Fort Knox, West Point), NY Fed Liberty Street vault, Bank of England, Bundesbank, Banque de France, Banca d'Italia, SNB, PBOC, RBI, BoJ, TCMB + Latin American central banks (BCB, BCRA, BCRP, Banxico, Bank of Canada).
Primary source: central bank's own publication. Aggregate tonnage cross-referenced from World Gold Council.
Why visual hierarchy matters: an LME-warranted ton of copper in Rotterdam is a fundamentally different financial object from a ton of copper in a private Brink's vault. Both exist; both are useful to know about. The visual tier tells you, at a glance, which one publishes stocks and which one doesn't.
Carbon intensity atlas
Greenhouse-gas emissions per tonne of metal produced — Scope 1 + Scope 2, cradle-to-gate. Each figure links to its primary source (industry association or producer disclosure). Country-aggregated averages are not published by industry bodies for most metals; we show global + regional + best/worst operator anchors where they are.
Higher than HPAL — full figure in NIC 2023 Sustainability Report. Pyrometallurgical NPI is one-tenth more carbon-intensive than 3rd-gen HPAL per company.
Methodology. Carbon intensity = Scope 1 + Scope 2 GHG emissions per tonne of metal (cradle-to-gate). Each datapoint cites a primary industry-association or producer disclosure. Country-aggregated averages are not published by industry bodies for most metals, so we show regional averages (where IAI/WSA publish them) plus selected producer disclosures. Data version 1.0, captured 2026-06-14. Tier thresholds are TSM™ editorial buckets — the underlying numbers are unchanged from each source.
About this map
Built on free, open-source tooling. Map rendering uses Leaflet (BSD-2-Clause) on top of OpenStreetMap tiles (ODbL). No vendor map SDKs or API keys are involved.
Primary sources only. Reserves figures pass through unchanged from USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 — every reserves popup links directly to the relevant USGS PDF. Warehouse, exchange and university popups link to the operator's own official page. We do not re-encyclopaedify any of this data.
Port operator data. Each port popup shows the legal operator and ultimate parent group with stake and concession year, sourced from each operator's annual report (COSCO Shipping Ports HKEx 1199, China Merchants Port Holdings HKEx 144, DP World, Adani Ports NSE, PSA International, APM Terminals via A.P. Møller-Mærsk, Hutchison Ports via CK Hutchison HKEx 0001) and the relevant port authority disclosures. TSM™ does not classify ownership — only mirrors what issuers publicly disclose.
Coordinates are approximate centroids (~10 km precision) used only to place markers — not republished from any vendor map dataset. Reserves circle size is proportional to the square root of tonnage so small producers stay visible next to giants.
Last updated: .
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