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24 results for “LBMA accreditation”
Industry · 20 August 2026
The Refiner's Ledger
…Delivery brick sits a chain of chlorination furnaces, electrolytic cells, assay labs and accreditation committees that decides which gold the world's markets will accept without question — and which gold gets quietly refused. · Doré, the raw semi-refined alloy poured at a mine s…
Tomas Herrera · 20 min read
Industry · 2 July 2026
Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery
…que older than the periodic table, remains the referee method for purity. · Good Delivery accreditation governs which bars trade without re-assay in the wholesale market. · Provenance documentation now determines a bar's marketability as much as its fineness. · Recycled scrap is…
Tomas Herrera · 12 min read
Industry · 6 August 2026
The Scrap Trade
…tually bite The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for responsible mineral supply chains and the LBMA's Responsible Gold Guidance now require accredited refiners to trace and document the origin of feedstock, including scrap, and to reject material with red flags such as inconsistent pa…
Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read
Markets · 2 August 2026
Who Actually Sets the Gold Price
…nter market and COMEX futures, with the two tethered by the EFP spread. · The twice-daily LBMA auction is a benchmark-setting mechanism for contract settlement, not the market itself. · Regional premiums in Shanghai, Mumbai and Istanbul are logistics and policy signals, not arbit…
Ingrid Sørensen · 22 min read
Markets · 8 August 2026
Moving Bullion: The Logistics Nobody Prices
Between the vault and the buyer sits an industry of armoured vehicles, sealed cargo, bonded warehouses and insurance clauses. It rarely makes news, and it is the reason a spot price in London can dive…
Ingrid Sørensen · 17 min read
Craft · 22 July 2026
Hallmarks and Assay: How Anyone Proves Gold Is Gold
…refiner's stamp, a serial number, fineness and weight, verified through the refiner's own accreditation and periodic audit rather than a separate assay office punch on each bar. The underlying principle — an independent standard, a traceable mark, and accountability if it is wron…
Yusuf Demir · 20 min read
Industry · 7 August 2026
How Fake Gold Is Detected
…ours Typical turnaround for a destructive fire assay 0 Reported forgeries within unbroken LBMA chain-of-custody bars Rising Trend in serialised, database-linked bar authentication
Tomas Herrera · 15 min read
Mining · 22 May 2026
The Other Supply Chain: Artisanal Mining and the Mercury Problem
…, jewellery brands face consumer and regulatory scrutiny, and an accredited refiner risks accreditation by accepting undocumented material. The result is a set of certified supply routes that pay a premium for gold with a verified origin. · These routes work, at limited scale, an…
Amara Okonjo · 12 min read
Industry · 7 August 2026
After the Cyanide
Every ounce of mined gold leaves behind roughly a tonne of processed rock and the water that carried it. What happens to that material after the last shift is the part of the industry with the longest…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
Markets · 20 June 2026
Bring It Home: Central Banks and the Great Gold Repatriation
For half a century it was rational to store your gold in someone else's basement. Then the calculus of counterparty risk changed, and reserve managers started chartering aircraft. · Overseas custody w…
Ingrid Sørensen · 13 min read
Mining · 5 August 2026
Grade, Cut-off and the Arithmetic of an Open Pit
A gold mine is not a hole with gold in it. It is a spreadsheet with a hole attached — and the single number that decides which rock is ore and which rock is waste moves every time the price does. · Mo…
Amara Okonjo · 16 min read
Mining · 19 August 2026
Nine Grams a Tonne
What does it actually cost to pull an ounce of gold out of the ground? The honest answer runs through grade decline, energy and water bills, permitting delays and the closure liabilities nobody prices…
Amara Okonjo · 20 min read
Markets · 17 August 2026
Paper Gold: What You Own When You Do Not Own Bars
Most of the world's gold exposure is a contract, not a metal. Futures, unallocated accounts and exchange-traded funds each promise gold in a different way — and the differences only become visible whe…
Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read
Craft · 5 June 2026
The Alchemy of Craft: What Goldsmiths Know That Machines Don't
Gold's working properties are so extreme they border on the absurd — one gram drawn into three kilometres of wire. Inside a trade where the tools have barely changed and the hands are irreplaceable. ·…
Yusuf Demir · 11 min read
Industry · 4 August 2026
The Gold Inside Your Phone
Industrial demand is the quietest third of the gold market: a few tenths of a gram per handset, multiplied by billions of devices, chosen not for prestige but because nothing else conducts as reliably…
Tomas Herrera · 15 min read
History · 14 July 2026
The Gold Standard: How a Soft Yellow Metal Became Money
For roughly five thousand years, humanity kept returning to the same element to settle its debts. The story is less about greed than about the unusually boring chemistry of atomic number 79. · Gold's…
Marguerite Adler · 14 min read
History · 9 August 2026
The Hoard Problem: What Buried Gold Actually Tells Us
A field of gold torcs and coins is a spectacular find and a treacherous document. The people who buried it were not writing to us, and the reasons they had for putting it in the ground are exactly wha…
Marguerite Adler · 16 min read
Science · 8 August 2026
The Metal That Went Medical
Divide gold finely enough and it stops being gold-coloured, stops being inert in the way you expect, and starts doing work in places no bullion bar could reach — including the test strip that told you…
Amara Okonjo · 15 min read
Science · 9 August 2026
The Metallurgy of Karat
Pure gold is too soft to hold a stone, too soft to hold an edge, and the wrong colour for half the world's taste. Almost everything you own that is gold is a designed alloy — and the design is where t…
Tomas Herrera · 16 min read
Markets · 18 August 2026
The Vault Beneath the City
Beneath the Bank of England and beneath lower Manhattan sit two of the largest concentrations of monetary gold on earth, moved between anonymous compartments by a handful of porters who never touch th…
Ingrid Sørensen · 21 min read
Craft · 3 August 2026
The Wedding-Season Bid: How Jewellery Demand Sets the Floor
Half the world's gold is worn, not stored. In India and China that distinction barely exists — and the buying behaviour it produces is the most reliably contrarian force in the entire market. · Jewell…
Yusuf Demir · 16 min read
Industry · 28 July 2026
Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone
A tonne of good underground ore holds a few grams of gold. A tonne of discarded circuit boards can hold two hundred. So why is most of it still going into landfill? · Concentration, not tonnage, is wh…
Tomas Herrera · 21 min read
Science · 10 August 2026
Where Gold Actually Comes From
Every gram of gold on Earth was manufactured in an astrophysical catastrophe, arrived here after the planet had already formed, and was then concentrated by hot water. Three separate accidents, none o…
Tomas Herrera · 18 min read
Markets · 6 August 2026
Why Central Banks Started Buying Gold Again
For three decades official institutions were net sellers of bullion, and the policy consensus treated the metal as a museum piece. Then, quietly, the world's reserve managers reversed. The reasons are…
Ingrid Sørensen · 17 min read
