Six things a producer should expect from a gold buyer

There is no shortage of buyers who appear in a producing district, promise a great deal and vanish when the first payment falls due. Producers deserve better and the market works better when they get it. Here is what we think a licensed producer is entitled to expect.

A price you can check

A formula against a published benchmark, with each part of the discount disclosed. If a buyer will not tell you how the price is calculated, you have been offered a number rather than a price.

An assay you can trust

Fire assay by an accredited laboratory, a split sample and an umpire procedure for disputes. A buyer who relies only on their own handheld XRF is asking you to trust a reading you cannot verify.

Payment when it was promised

Settlement terms should be short, written and honoured. A buyer with trade finance in place can pay on assay. A buyer who has to sell your metal before they can pay you is a broker holding your gold.

Compliance that protects you

The questions a serious buyer asks are the questions the refinery will ask them. A buyer who asks nothing is either not shipping to an accredited refinery or plans to misrepresent where your metal came from. Either way it is your name on the licence.

Money in the relationship

Steady producers should be offered forward offtake, part-payment and where it makes sense capital for equipment. A buyer who only wants this month's lot has no reason to care what happens to you next month.

A buyer who turns up

Weighing and sampling should happen in your presence, with people you know, in a place you agree on. Trade at a distance can come later. It starts on the ground.

An accord is an agreement. In this trade the agreement is everything.