by Ronan Manly
Bullion Star
Last year I published two posts featuring the 2013 refinery production statistics of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Good Delivery Refiners (gold and silver). The first post, “Moving the goalposts….The LBMA’s shifting stance on gold refinery production statistics“, looked primarily at how, in May 2015, the LBMA had first published a 2013 gold refining output total for its member refineries of 6601 tonnes, only to dramatically reduce this total to 4,600 tonnes in early August 2015, a few days after the 6,601 tonnes figure was mentioned on this blog.
Not only that, but the early August LBMA revisions also introduced a dubious comparison approach of comparing the LBMA refiners’ output to the rigid and incomplete GFMS data model of total global gold supply (mining output, scrap recycling and net hedging). There were also unexplained changes by the LBMA to the silver output figures at that time in early August 2015.