Editorial standards

Last updated: 6 September 2026

This page is the rulebook. It covers how we source, how we write, and what we do when we get something wrong. Hold us to it.

Primary sources first

Every article starts with documents, not with other articles. Earnings-call transcripts, quarterly reports, SEC and SEDAR filings, technical reports, reserve statements, central-bank and government data, exchange inventories and pricing. When we quote a number, it links to the document it came from. If we can’t find a primary source for a claim, we say so or we leave it out.

We don’t build analysis on bullion-dealer blogs, promotional newsletters, anonymous forum posts, or secondhand summaries of things we could read ourselves.

Quotes are dated and attributed

Anyone we quote gets their name, their role, where they said it, and when. If the person has a position (they run a mining company, they sell metal, they manage a fund), we say so in the same paragraph, not in a footnote.

Every piece argues against itself

Each article carries a section that lays out the case against its own thesis. If we’re bullish on something, that’s where we list what would prove us wrong. We think a piece that can’t do this isn’t finished.

Analysis, not advice

We publish research and commentary. Our job is to explain what operators said, what the filings show, and where a supply chain is under strain. It is not to tell you what to buy or sell, and nothing here should be read that way. The terms of use spell this out.

Independence

Nobody pays us to cover a company, a project or a product. We hold no positions in companies we write about, and if that ever changes it goes at the top of the article. The site currently earns no revenue at all; see how we make money.

Corrections

We check figures against their source before publishing. When something still slips through, we fix it in place and add a dated note saying what changed. We don’t quietly edit. If you spot an error, send the source document through the contact form and we’ll look at it first.

Uncertainty

Commodities markets run on incomplete information. Where a number is an estimate, a projection, or our own reading of the data, we label it as such and keep it separate from what a company or a filing states directly.

How the work gets done

Articles are researched from the underlying documents and written and checked by a person. We use software to help gather and organise source material, such as pulling transcripts and price histories, and some of the photography on the site is produced with image tools and labelled “photo illustration”. The reading, the judgement and the final word are human.

Questions

Anything about how we work can go through the contact form.