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Industry · 2 July 2026

Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery

…chnology is medieval and the tolerance is a part in ten thousand. Chief assayer, European refinery, speaking on background · The pour. By this stage the metal has passed chlorination and electrolysis; the only remaining variable is the cast. A refinery worker pouring molten gold…

Tomas Herrera · 19 min read

Industry · 6 August 2026

The Scrap Trade

…counter. · A seller with two hundred grams of mixed jewellery has no realistic route to a refinery gate price, because refiners work in kilogram lots and will not open an account for a single parcel. The chain of intermediaries is not a scam; it is the mechanism by which small, h…

Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read

Markets · 8 August 2026

Moving Bullion: The Logistics Nobody Prices

…ormats? Because re-casting requires melting, re-assaying and re-stamping at an accredited refinery, and refining capacity is finite and scheduled around existing customer orders. In calm markets the queue is short; in a stressed market, when many holders want the same conversion…

Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read

Industry · 20 August 2026

The Refiner's Ledger

…ciation, is a reputational credential as much as a technical one, and losing it can end a refinery's ability to sell into the wholesale market overnight. · Responsible-sourcing audits, built around OECD due-diligence guidance, are meant to trace gold back through the supply chain…

Tomas Herrera · 17 min read

Mining · 22 May 2026

The Other Supply Chain: Artisanal Mining and the Mercury Problem

…l one. Remove any of the three and the chain breaks at that link. · Traceability from the refinery end · Downstream, the pressure is real. Refiners face due-diligence expectations, jewellery brands face consumer and regulatory scrutiny, and an accredited refiner risks accreditati…

Amara Okonjo · 15 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

How Fake Gold Is Detected

…r than XRF. Fire assay: destructive, definitive, and reserved for settlement disputes and refinery intake. · A working authentication bench. The cheap instruments do most of the volume; the expensive ones exist to catch what the cheap ones structurally cannot see. Calipers, an ul…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Industry · 28 July 2026

Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone

…g the most toxic residues. · Recycled metal already supplies a meaningful share of annual refinery feed and is the only supply source that responds quickly to price. · Miniaturisation cuts gold per device but raises the difficulty of separating it, so recovery rates are not autom…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Markets · 2 August 2026

Who Actually Sets the Gold Price

…hmark exists because an enormous volume of contracts needs a defensible reference number: refinery supply agreements, mine hedges, jewellery wholesale terms, fund valuations. What it is not is the place where the price is discovered. Discovery happens continuously, all day, acros…

Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read

Markets · 20 June 2026

Bring It Home: Central Banks and the Great Gold Repatriation

…its market fungibility but adds cost, time and, ironically, a queue at the same class of refinery this magazine has covered elsewhere. · Confidential routing and staggered shipments to avoid concentrating risk in a single flight or vessel. Independent verification on arrival: we…

Ingrid Sørensen · 14 min read

Mining · 5 August 2026

Grade, Cut-off and the Arithmetic of an Open Pit

…or conventional carbon-in-leach circuits 1–2 yrs Time from ore in the pit to metal at the refinery, including stockpiles · The energy-grade trade-off · The fundamental constraint on modern mining is not the availability of gold but the availability of energy. As average ore grade…

Amara Okonjo · 20 min read

Markets · 17 August 2026

Paper Gold: What You Own When You Do Not Own Bars

…lume dwarfs annual mine supply, and why that comparison is close to meaningless. A hedged refinery may turn its position over daily; the same tonne of metal generates volume repeatedly without anyone claiming to own it twice. The futures market is not a warehouse; it is a giant i…

Ingrid Sørensen · 23 min read

Craft · 5 June 2026

The Alchemy of Craft: What Goldsmiths Know That Machines Don't

…torch; refined gold has no memory of its previous life once it has been through a proper refinery. · It changes a great deal about how workshops present themselves to clients, however. Recycled content has become a genuine point of commercial differentiation, particularly among…

Yusuf Demir · 16 min read

Markets · 11 September 2026

The Last Audit: What We Actually Know About the World's Official Gold

…That is what proof looks like in this market — you melt the past and weigh it. Frankfurt refinery technician who worked on the recasting programme · The leasing layer, and the number nobody publishes · The third layer of the composite — gold out on lease or in swaps — is where t…

Ingrid Sørensen · 22 min read

Markets · 6 August 2026

Why Central Banks Started Buying Gold Again

…ket analysts, this means that official demand must often be inferred from trade flows and refinery data rather than taken directly from official statements. · The paradox is that while the market craves transparency to price gold accurately, central banks require opacity to execu…

Ingrid Sørensen · 14 min read

Policies · 6 August 2026

Editorial Standards & Corrections

…s we cover. Site visits are paid for by the publication. Where physical access to a mine, refinery or vault can only be arranged through the operator — which is frequently the case, since these are secure industrial sites — the piece states who arranged access and who paid for it…

Policies · 6 August 2026

Financial Disclaimer

…rwise is being straight with you. · Data drawn from third parties — exchange settlements, refinery statistics, reserve disclosures, company filings — is reproduced in good faith and is only as reliable as its source. Where a figure is disputed, contested or subject to later revis…

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 · 16 min read

Craft · 22 July 2026

Hallmarks and Assay: How Anyone Proves Gold Is Gold

A hallmark is one of the oldest consumer protection technologies in continuous use. It is also, on close inspection, a small masterpiece of institutional design — and it is being quietly eroded. · A h…

Yusuf Demir · 15 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 · 18 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 · 18 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 · 19 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 · 17 min read

Markets · 8 September 2026

The Real-Rate Trade: Why Gold Moves When Bond Yields Do

For two decades the gold price could be read off an inflation-linked bond screen. Then, somewhere after 2022, the relationship stopped behaving — and the argument about why has become the most consequ…

Ingrid Sørensen · 25 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 · 22 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 · 15 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 · 17 min read