Gold · Origin deep dive
Loco London spot (LBMA)
The price two-thirds of the world trades against
Cleared loco London across LPMCL member vaults — JPMorgan, HSBC, ICBC Standard — and the Bank of England's bullion vault.
LBMA Good Delivery 400-ounce bars, 99.5% minimum fineness, from accredited refiners on the Good Delivery List.
Unallocated book-entry transfers settle most volume; physical moves via secure carriers like Brink's and Loomis between vaults.
Bullion banks, central banks, ETFs vaulted in London and institutional allocators define the wholesale bid.
Physical seasonality is muted at the hub; flows respond to ETF creations, central-bank buying and rate expectations.
Vault liquidity drains during EFP dislocations, central-bank demand shifts and lease-rate spikes move loco-London availability.
Import duty plus wedding-season pull
Landed via nominated banks and agencies through Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad air cargo terminals into bonded vaults.
995 and 999 fine kilobars and ten-tola-adjacent trade bars from accredited refiners, sized for jewellery fabrication.
Air-freighted kilobar consignments cleared through customs at the prevailing import duty, then distributed to bullion dealers.
Jewellery fabricators and retail investors in the world's largest consumer market alongside doré-importing domestic refiners.
Diwali and the autumn-winter and spring wedding seasons pull imports hard; monsoon-dependent rural incomes gate the strength.
Import-duty changes, rupee weakness and price spikes flip the landed premium to discount when demand strikes.
The London-NY basis — blew out during the tariff scare
Exchange-licensed depositories in New York and Delaware, bridged to London vaults through the transatlantic air corridor.
COMEX-deliverable 100-ounce and kilobars, requiring Swiss refiners to recast London 400-ounce metal for delivery.
EFP arbitrage flies bars London-Zurich-New York when the futures basis exceeds recasting, freight and financing costs.
Futures arbitrageurs, bullion banks managing basis risk and US institutions taking exchange delivery.
Basis follows contract roll cycles and positioning rather than seasons; delivery-month tightness recurs quarterly.
Tariff scares — as in the 2025 blowout that vacuumed bars into New York — funding costs and vault logistics rip the EFP around.
SGE premium reads Chinese retail and PBoC demand
Imports flow through PBoC-licensed banks into SGE-certified vaults in Shanghai and Shenzhen under the quota system.
SGE-standard 99.99 fine kilobars and 99.95 larger bars from accredited international and domestic refiners.
Air-freighted from Switzerland, Australia and South Africa under bank import quotas; the SGE premium is the quota-scarcity gauge.
Chinese jewellery fabricators, retail bar-and-coin demand and, at the margin, official-sector accumulation.
Premiums firm into Lunar New Year gifting and the autumn wedding season, softening through the summer lull.
PBoC quota issuance, yuan pricing versus London and bursts of retail hoarding swing the premium between rich and negative.
Gulf refining and re-export hub
Loco Dubai across DMCC-linked vaults, the Gulf's re-export hub for African doré, Asian kilobar and scrap flows.
Mix of LBMA-accredited and local UAE-refined bars; non-accredited output trades at a documented discount to London-grade metal.
Air-freight hub economics — doré in from Africa, refined kilobar out to India and Asia through Dubai's cargo terminals.
Indian and Southeast Asian importers, regional jewellery trade and refiners aggregating artisanal and scrap feed.
Flows swell ahead of Indian festival importing windows and Ramadan-Eid gifting demand across the Gulf.
Provenance scrutiny of African doré, UAE-India trade-deal duty arbitrage and accreditation gaps drive the Dubai spread.
Scrap feed nets slightly under spot
Collected globally through jewellery trade-in networks and delivered to refinery gates in Switzerland, India, Turkey and the UAE.
Variable-karat jewellery, industrial and bar scrap refined back to Good Delivery or kilobar standard at accredited plants.
Aggregators consolidate scrap to refiners who charge treatment and refining fees, netting sellers slightly under spot.
Refiners feed recycled output straight into the same kilobar and Good Delivery channels as mine supply.
Scrap supply is price-elastic, surging on record price spikes as households dishoard, especially in India and the Middle East.
Price-driven supply swings, refining-charge moves and provenance rules on mixed feed set recycled netbacks against spot.