Recent (August 2026) news affecting the gold markets

[pmbug]

Some observations on the dueling gold markets

2025

May 8 - LBMA suspends two Chinese silver refineries following a modified assurance opinion, issued by SLR Consulting Ltd., for its FY2025 Responsible Silver Compliance Report

2026

July 24 (green line) - China restricts banks from offering retail traders access to leveraged trading on SGE gold contracts. SGE premium to LBMA spot starts to shrink.


August 5 - LBMA suspends Shangdong Gold Smelting from their gold and silver Good Delivery Lists following its addition to the United States Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List.

August 19 - SGE gold flips from premium to discount versus LBMA spot

August 20 - LBMA announces suspension of Hunan Shuikoushan Nonferrous Metals Group following a modified assurance opinion, issued by SLR Consulting Ltd., for its FY2025 Responsible Silver compliance reporting. Yes, you read that correctly. It's the same 2025 report that prompted the LBMA to censure two silver refineries over a year ago.

August 20 - China Gold Association issues a strongly worded letter castigating the USA's (& LBMA's) use of the United States Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List to target parts of the Chinese gold industry.

Special Consideration

India is back at the global silver buyer's table again with silver imports restarting in August. Evidence from the Indian MCX futures exchange indicate that the same is not yet true for gold. When India does resume gold imports, you would think they would try to buy from China given their discount to LBMA spot. Will China allow it or limit exports?


LBMA suspends silver refineries

Two Silver Refineries Suspended

Guangxi Nandan Nanfang Metal Company Limited and Minshan Environmental Energy High Tech Co., Ltd have been suspended by LBMA with effect from 8 May 2026.

www.lbma.org.uk

2026 LBMA suspensions h/t:


SGE premium chart:


China Gold Association

 

[Bottom Feeder]

Gold is a critical mineral??
Not much use for gold other than finance and jewelry.

 

[pmbug]

India's MCX futures exchange is critically low on vault stock for the 5KG gold contract. With 3.8K ozt leaving the vault yesterday (Aug 31), the MCX has ~15K ozt remaining. The 5 DMA run rate is now 47 business days left to go. That rate could accelerate or slow down, but either way, the vault stock is critically low.

Assuming it's the Indian jewelry industry primarily which is withdrawing the gold from the MCX, it looks like the government has a choice going forward to either lower barriers to importing gold or letting the domestic jewelry industry deal with a supply problem as wedding season approaches.

 

[pmbug]

India's IBJA (spot) > MCX (futures) for the 3rd day in a row and the discounts to LBMA spot (when adjusted to remove 15% import duty) are collapsing. All signs point to a gold supply crunch in India.

 

[pmbug]

As I read the tweet quoted below, I got to wondering about the relative size of the two major headwinds for gold over the last few months:

1) Iran oil for cash + gold trade contraction
2) Indian government import duty hike + import restrictions

Grok tells me the impact of the USA-Iran war on Iran's oil trade is as follows:

Pre-war, Iran exported ~1.4–1.7 million bpd of crude/condensate ... War, Hormuz restrictions, and U.S. blockades slashed volumes: May 2026 exports hit multi-year lows (~200–300k bpd); China-bound flows later ran ~534k bpd in early August (vs. 1.38–1.58 million bpd pre-war averages and 823k bpd in July). ... Iran’s gold imports dropped sharply: ~27t in 10 months of the relevant Iranian year vs. ~82t prior (–63%).

If I'm parsing that correctly, that's an average loss of about 5.5 tons of gold per month.

When I checked @GoldFishCharts website for Indian gold imports I was somewhat surprised. I watch the silver import/export numbers closely and the drop in Indian silver imports following the May import duty hike and restrictions was obvious and dramatic.

The gold imports did not seem to be similarly affected as the impact was not as dramatic. At first glance, May-June 2026 imports look to be on par with May-June 2025 imports. Upon second glance, we see:

Jan-Apr 2025 - 132.6 metric tons
Jan-Apr 2026 - 181.7 metric tons

2026 imports were 37% higher MoM Jan-Apr than 2025. Without the May import interventions, we might expect that India would have imported 51.512 metric tons instead of only 37.6 in May-June (average loss of ~7 metric tons per month).

The numbers for the Iran oil for gold trade are not as firm as the Indian trade data, but it appears as if the impact of India's May import duty hike / restrictions has been almost 30% greater than the Iran war on global gold demand/trade.