LBMA Good Delivery: Bar Specifications and Refiner Accreditation

What LBMA Good Delivery Covers

LBMA Good Delivery is a set of specifications published by the London Bullion Market Association that describes bar dimensions, purity, markings and refiner accreditation used in the London wholesale bullion market.

The scope is specific: it applies to bars used within accepted custody and clearing arrangements in the London OTC market. Other exchanges, product forms and retail products may follow different specifications and requirements.

This article summarises the main elements of the specification. Details can be updated over time, so the current status of the specification and the refiner list should be checked directly with LBMA.

The Physical Specification

The equivalent silver specification is similar in structure but the numbers are different: silver bars are 750 to 1,100 troy ounces (approximately 23 to 34 kg), with minimum fineness 999.0 (99.9% pure).

Refiner Accreditation

A bar's acceptance in the London market depends on the refiner being on the LBMA accreditation list. Accreditation is granted after a documented process that reviews the refiner's technical capability, financial standing, production history and business practices.

The list of accredited refiners changes over time as refiners are added, withdrawn or moved to transitional status. Requirements and the current list should be checked directly with LBMA rather than assumed from any single article.

When a refiner's status changes, existing bars typically remain deliverable during a defined transitional period, while newly produced bars are subject to the updated status.

Custody History and Re-verification

Some wholesale transactions check whether a bar's history has been maintained within accepted custody and transport arrangements. Where the history is incomplete or does not meet the receiving market's requirements, additional documentation, inspection or re-refining may be required.

This does not mean that every gold product outside such custody arrangements is worth less. Prices for coins and small bars depend on product type, weight, condition, manufacturer, sales channel, local demand and transaction costs.

Relationship with Other Markets

The Shanghai Gold Exchange uses contract and delivery specifications that are not identical to the LBMA Good Delivery standard. Products intended for the Chinese market may therefore require bars of a different weight, purity or approved form.

Refining and recasting can connect the two systems, but this site does not collect refinery throughput, bar-conversion volumes, customs flows or London vault movements. It cannot determine how much SGE-deliverable gold originated as an LBMA Good Delivery bar or where any conversion occurred.

Changes in an SGE-related price should not automatically be attributed to London vault withdrawals or refinery constraints. Confirming such a relationship would require shipment, inventory, refinery and timing data that are not included in the dashboard.

Historical Disruptions and Their Limits

In 2020, refining, transport and market operations were interrupted at the same time in several countries. Energy-price movements in Europe in 2022 may also have affected costs and operating conditions for some facilities.

These episodes do not establish that future disruptions will unfold in the same way or move any particular market premium. Verifying such a relationship requires refinery operations, inventory, shipment and contract-specification data recorded at the same time as market prices.

Refinery operations or transport disruptions can affect the physical supply process. However, this site does not collect refinery utilisation, bar-conversion volumes, shipment records or customs data, so any observed premium change is not attributed here to those factors as a definitive cause.

What the Dashboard Shows

The LBMA reading on the dashboard is not the Good Delivery bar price directly. It is the value that the site's vendor (Metals.dev) publishes in its LBMA-related price field (currently lbma_gold_pm for gold), pulled once per day.

Good Delivery rules form part of the operating framework of the London wholesale bullion market. Changes to the rules or to a refiner's accreditation may affect the eligibility or handling of particular bars.

This site cannot determine whether such a change caused a movement in the vendor's LBMA-related field. That assessment would require contemporaneous data on affected refiners, bar inventories, shipments, contracts and market prices.