The World Gold Council is urging gold producers to publish which refiners receive metal from each operating mine, an effort to make legitimate gold flows easier to distinguish from illicit trade. The guidance applies to companies producing doré, the partly refined gold-and-silver bars poured at mine sites, and recommends annual disclosure rather than creating a legal requirement.
Companies should identify each mine, its state and country, the refiner receiving its doré and the refiner’s country. Every refiner should be listed when a mine uses more than one, including relationships involving toll processing when the producer retains legal custody until export. The information can appear in annual reports, sustainability reports or equivalent publications.
The framework follows a September 2023 commitment by council members to disclose refining partners. It recommends reporting for the previous 12 months but does not set a first reporting year, publication deadline or penalties for noncompliance. Shipment weights, transport companies, routes, traders and exporters may remain undisclosed, along with sensitive commercial or security information.
The guidance covers doré but excludes gold shipped as concentrate, carbon fines or low-grade sweepings. Naming mine-to-refiner relationships would make those links public, but the disclosures alone would not establish that the gold was responsibly sourced. Pressure for wider transparency also includes a September 2025 Human Rights Watch submission urging proposed industry rules to identify mines of origin and suppliers, including those outside the council’s membership and suppliers of recycled gold.