Division 03
Metals & Minerals
Refined metal, ore and mineral concentrate, where the specification is usually settled before the conversation starts and the real work is proving where the material came from. Four desks — and the division where we turn down more enquiries than we take.
The division
In this division the chemistry is the easy part.
Across most of our book a cargo is an argument about specification. Metals are not. A Grade A cathode is a Grade A cathode, a mill's chemistry is on a certificate, and refining a difficult doré bar is a quotable service rather than a problem. The metal almost always is what it says it is.
What is not settled is everything around the metal. Which refiner made it or will take it, and is that refiner still accredited this month. Which brand, which shape, which warehouse, on warrant or off. Whether the chain of custody reaches a mine or stops at a trading company. Whether the moisture on a fine concentrate has been certified inside the intervals the carriage code requires. Whether the destination's regulator will accept the material at all — a question that in this division turns on cadmium, on cobalt due diligence and on border carbon rather than on grade.
So these four pages are organised around the constraint that actually binds each product, not around a product description. And one thing is worth saying at division level: this is the book where we decline the most, by a wide margin, usually at the first reply. The enquiry flow in refined metals is genuinely poor, and a house that accepted most of it would not be here long.
The desks
Four products, four different binding constraints.
Precious Metals
Gold and silver doré, precious-metal concentrate and mine output placed with accredited refiners — raw material into the refinery, not bullion out of it. The constraint is provenance, because a Good Delivery refiner is audited annually on what it takes in, so its compliance desk holds the veto before the assay lab sees anything.
Base & Battery Metals
Copper, aluminium, zinc, nickel, lead, tin and cobalt to LME contract specification. The constraint is brand, shape, location and warrant status — plus, on the battery side, a due diligence obligation whose date moved to 18 August 2027, and CBAM on aluminium.
Iron Ore & Steel
Fines, lump, pellets and concentrate, and semi-finished and finished steel. The constraint is moisture, because iron ore fines can liquefy — and then the pricing basis, which changed underneath the market in January 2026.
Apatite Concentrate
Igneous apatite for phosphoric acid, fertiliser and technical phosphates. The constraint is cadmium, expressed per unit of P₂O₅ so that blending cannot solve it — and a carriage classification that surprises most first-time buyers.
Across the division
The three things that do not change by product.
Origin before price
Counterparty, origin and chain of title are screened per consignment, not once at onboarding. On refined metal the origin question is the whole question, so it is asked first and answered with documents rather than assurances. Where an origin cannot be cleared we decline at enquiry, and we do not refer the enquiry onward — see Compliance.
Independent verification, before value moves
An agency is appointed for the consignment — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly, with sampling, weighing and assay under supervision and retained samples held for the claim period. We do not accept a seller's own assay as the governing figure, and we do not ask a buyer to accept ours.
We are a physical desk
We do not mine, refine, roll or beneficiate, and we hold no equity in production. We do not operate warehouses or terminals. We do not offer hedging, storage or custody, and we do not participate in transactions where the metal exists to support a financial instrument rather than to be consumed.
Technical Library
Specifications are released, not published.
Brand lists, impurity tables, assay and sampling protocols, settlement term sheets and product datasheets sit behind an identified request.
This is deliberate. A published specification reads as a standing offer, dates the moment a producer changes, and gives a counterparty grounds to hold us to a figure we never quoted. Tell us what you are evaluating and we will send the actual document.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.