Refiner looking to establish new business relationships!

[goldsilverpro]

WCR_GRL,

These guys are right. This forum has always been a source of technical information and that's how we want to keep it. We have sort of looked the other way when a member that actually contributes something to the forum wants to sell their services. In the past, we have had vendors, such as yourself, that have made no contributions. When they persisted in doing nothing but peddle their wares or services, they were ultimately banned. Spam is not welcome and we deal with it severely. On this thread, some of our most valued members have begun to complain about your attitude and tactics. I assure you that we would much rather lose you than lose them. Surely there is some good juicy information, technical or otherwise, that you could contribute. If you do so, you would be seen in a different light.

After working for and consulting for large refiners for much of my 40 years in the business, I am quite aware of how refiners work. Most are crooks. I define a crooked refiner as one whose payout is less than their quoted charges, based on a 100% yield disclosure. The crookedness is usually only a matter of degree. Unfortunately, everything must end up in the refiner's hands, sooner or later. That's why I call them "The Last Liar."

However, we definitely understand that refiners are a very necessary part of the industry and to this forum.

We moderators are considering the addition of a new category just for commercial companies or individuals: Refiners, Buyers, Processors, Assayers, etc. It will be the only place they can pitch their services. Once we add this, posts of this nature made in other forum categories will be considered spam and will be immediately deleted. Persistence in this will result in banning. We will also try to keep the vendors honest by questioning blatant BS or anything that sounds suspect or is vague. We will try, as we always have in the past, to arm the members with information that will allow them to get the best shake from a refiner. Also, I hope that this new category will be used to post results that members have received from refiners and buyers, so they can be gone over with very critical educated eyes.

I guarantee you that we didn't just fall off a turnip truck. This forum can be a hornet's nest for refiners.

Welcome to the forum! I mean that with all sincerity. I really hope that your company is that rarest of all things - an honest refiner!

Chris

 

[goldsilverpro]

Let's leave the guy alone, at least until we get the new category. He hasn't been that bad. We have seen much worse. Who knows, maybe his refinery is miraculously honest. We certainly need one of those.

 

[Oz]

GSP,

If I read correctly WCR_GRL is a broker that will always be dependant upon the honesty of the refinery they chose to use no matter how honest they are about their broker fees. This does not preclude their service from being of use to some members however as they are apparently willing to buy upfront instead of based on recovered values. If they can accurately judge a material lot from afar based on the components it contains and can follow through with promised accurate payment it could prove worthwhile paying a broker fee for those with smaller lots.

As to their posting content I agree with you as I was just shy of commenting that I had not seen any posts from them other than advertizing their services. Since they do not refine themselves perhaps the best information they could provide that would be help to members would be quantitative yields of some of the materials they have brokered. If they are a reseller instead of dealing directly with a refinery they would be lacking that information to share. I’m sure you and others will be ready to call BS if inaccurate details are provided.

 

[markqf1]

I agree.
A new section is a great idea.
Nothing wrong with trying to make an honest dollar.

Also nothing wrong with watching someones back for them.
Honesty is not automatically taken for granted anymore, it must be proven.

Mark

 

[goldsilverpro]

Oz,

You're right. According to their Process (which, unfortunately, I didn't read) they are scrap buyers, preparers, and brokers. However, according to his first post and URL, they are refiners. This seems misleading and untrue.

As far as I could tell, their business is wholly electronic scrap.

With proper representation, they would get a very honest shake with the refiner. The shredding could put the scrap into a position where it could be ball-park sampled and assayed before shipping to a refiner. Final samples would be taken at the refinery.

They probably are dealing with a large refiner or smelter that requires at least 10,000# lots. On their website, they gave a lot example of 10,000# of ICs worth $12.60/pound in PMs and copper. As the bottom line, the customer received 55% of these values. When they buy smaller lots outright, I would guess the customer receives much less than 55%.

Here is their fee schedule for lots of at least 10,000#.

Metal Recovery Rates

Metal Market Customer Recovery
Gold LME P.M. 95% of assay content *
Silver LME P.M. 90% of assay content *
Palladium LME P.M. 80% of assay content *
Copper Comex 80% of assay content *
* Fees: West Coast Refiners receives 25% of the total Metal Recovery. Minimum metal recovery required for payout.

Flat Rate Processing Fees

Lot Size Price Per lbs
Less than 10,000 lbs $3.00
10,000 to 20,000 lbs $2.50
More than 20,000 lbs $2.00

I would guess the company's gross is about $.50 to $1.00/pound on the processing fees, several % points on the assay content accountability, and 25% of the metal - for a total of 30% to 35%. Of course, the company has lots of expenses - labor, transportation, rep fees, assay fees, building, etc., etc.

As scrap buyers and brokers, they are essentially middle men. If the customer has at least 10,000# of material, has the facilities and labor to prepare the material, plus the knowledge to rep and assay the material, he doesn't need the middle man or a professional rep or an assayer. He can take it directly to the refiner. How many of you have this volume and capabilities?

I tend to like their approach. It's very similar to what I did when I had a refinery. On smaller lots, they purchase the material. If the customer outright sells to them, he can never say he was cheated. On larger lots, if they don't get greedy, they can make a good profit based on their charges alone, without stealing. For what they are doing, I don't think the charges are outlandish. This is much better than telling the customer that the charges are 15% and then stealing 30% off the top, although the 55% bottom line may end up the same. Here again, the customer would have no complaints.

 

[Palladium]

Palladium,

What are you, the Gold Refining forum posting monitor??

My purpose on this forum is to learn more about the industry by what others post, make new business contacts and hopefully make some purchases along the way! Not to bash others because their intensions on this forum are different then mine.

:shock: :shock: :shock:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

There was a time when i would have eaten this up.

I hope you didn't take my words the wrong way. But they are what the are.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[4metals]

This may come as a shock to some but most refiners refine high grade materials and sample and ship out low grade prepared material. Often with low grade circuitry the parts are shredded and stream sampled so an actual value can be determined and the customer paid. Cost effective refining of these low grade materials involves either large scale leaching or smelting at a copper smelter and recovering the PM's from the slimes in the anode bags.
Any refiner that claims to process all materials to fine metal end points is either lying or operating at a loss. The accurate sampling requires a preparation that the end refiners rarely do themselves and because of this the industry necessitates material coming from brokers who prepare, sample and ship. So in my opinion it's not fair to chew up a "refiner" because he farms out prepared material, but if he misrepresents what is happening that's another story.

 

[goldsilverpro]

4metals is right. Most all so-called refiners of electronic materials are not really refiners. They are scrap preparers. They prepare the scrap and ship it to a large (usually copper) smelter who simply inserts the material into their stream. Although some material is prepared by shredding, I would imagine that most is still prepared by incineration, grinding, screening to separate the metallics from the ash (pulp), melting the metallics, and, after sampling, shipping both fractions, pulps and metal bars, to a primary copper smelter.

The copper base bars, containing PMs are called refiner bars. The only time I have ever heard of a "refinery" refining these bars themselves was a company operating in the desert in New Mexico. They were dissolving the bars electrolytically in membrane tanks using weak sulfuric. The copper and other metals were prevented from plating out by the membranes and the gold was collected in the anode bags. The copper was recovered from the solution by cementation with iron.

 

[Oz]

Perhaps my comments above were misunderstood. I am not overly concerned with what a business calls itself. WCR_GRL’s website paints a different picture than they have stated on here, fine by me. I meant what I had said that some members here could benefit from such a service having less than 10,000lbs if they offer up front purchases. I do not know how competitive their pricing is compared to others acting in the same capacity however.

I can say that one can not complain no matter the yield of their material if they agree to an upfront price. If I could buy material at $0.25 a pound and sell it for $1.00 a pound I would do it all day and not bother processing but focus instead on finding more supply. It all depends on your end goals.

I do not hold malice against accumulators as they take considerable risk in spot price volatility.

I like this new section as it may provide the opportunity for price discovery for the components many members here accumulate and give feedback as to who is honest in their claims of payment. It would put a feather in their cap in my humble opinion if they were willing to share actual yields. Although 25% of recovered metal sounds high on 10,000lb lots, electronic scrap is costly to process and I find it refreshing to see them take it up front instead of on the backside.