Precious Metals
Precious Metals Secondary Supply: Recycling Economics, Recovery Flows, and Price-Spike Absorption
Quantifies the contribution of scrap and recycled supply across gold, silver, and PGMs, examining price elasticity, autocatalyst recovery economics, refining capacity, and the conditions under which secondary supply caps price spikes.
$2,50054 pages · PDF · 2.7 MB
Summary
Recycled metal meets a large and price-sensitive share of precious-metals demand, and it is the supply most able to respond when prices spike. This report sizes secondary supply across gold, silver, and the platinum group metals, examines the economics of jewelry scrap, autocatalyst recovery, and electronic waste, and maps the refining capacity that gates how quickly recycled units reach the market. It frames the conditions under which secondary flows cap a rally.
Updated Nov 2025 · By Mining Terminal Research
What's inside
Table of contents
- 01Executive Summary: Secondary Supply in the 2024-2025 Price Cycle
- 02Secondary Supply as a Share of Total Market: Recovery Rates by Metal
- 03Gold Scrap Flows: Jewelry Recycling, Regional Price Elasticity, and the Limits of the Cash-for-Gold Response
- 04Silver Secondary Supply: Electronics Scrap, Industrial Waste, and Recent Recovery Volumes
- 05Autocatalyst PGM Recovery: Collection Economics, China's Rising Share, and End-of-Life Vehicle Timing
- 06Refining Capacity and Throughput: The Bottlenecks That Constrain Secondary Supply
- 07Cost Structure of Recovery: Collection, Transport, Smelting, and Refining Margins by Metal
- 08Price Responsiveness and the Supply Ceiling: When Recycled Flows Cap a Rally
- 09Geopolitical and Trade Frictions: Scrap Export Controls and Supply Chain Exposure
- 10Scenarios to 2027: Secondary Supply Under Flat, Elevated, and Declining Price Regimes
- 11Implications for Miners, Refiners, and End-Users
- 12Data Sources, Coverage, and Methodology
Charts & data tables
- ↳Precious Metals Secondary Supply trend dashboard (historical + forward scenarios)
- ↳Producer cost-curve comparison by region
- ↳ETF holdings versus price reaction map
- ↳Central bank net-purchase trend and inflection points
- ↳Supply-demand balance with scenario bands
- ↳Sensitivity matrix: price, cost, and policy variables
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