Harold_V said:
They can damned well pay as much as 98%----they sell over spot, and retain traces of other elements as part of their profit.
I agree.
Usually an honest refiner makes a profit in these ways:
1) The spread between his buy and sell.
2) Refining charges.
3) Surcharge over Spot to end users he sells to.
4) Gambling. He will hedge most purchases, but play the market and hold for a higher price to sell.
5) Metals he doesn't pay you for or pays a low percentage for. It's not his job to teach you metallurgy. You must know your material. If you sell on assay, and don't say "I know it has significant (fill in PGM here), assay for it," he won't. So he can't pay you for it. And if he says "I'll assay for (list lots of PGMs here)" he would be ripping you off in assay charges if the yield is low, so he won't say that.
6) Assay charges. The cupellation is a batch process, but you will be charged labor as if all the time was spent on your sample. This is fair, because when business is slow, yours
may be the only assay.
7) Metal contained in slag from the melt. He won't give you the slag unless you ask. The vast majority of customers would not know what to do with it anyway. I have seen it offered by refiners, to be met with a puzzled look from the customer. Is
this honest? Again, not his job to teach.
It
is dishonest if he uses a thick, viscous flux and stirs rapidly and roughly right before the pour.
These are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. We smaller refiners don't make the Spot surcharge. That goes to the refiner we sell it to. When we sell to end users like casters, we have to work hard at selling to get more than spot.