Gold Bullion
Refined gold in bar or ingot form, typically 99.5% purity or higher, the standard form in which central banks and institutional investors hold gold as a reserve asset rather than for retail jewellery or coin use.
Covered in 5 MetalsCost.com News Intelligence articles, most recently on September 22, 2026.
Overview
Gold bullion is refined gold cast or minted into bars, valued for its metal content rather than any decorative or design premium the way jewellery or collector coins are. It ranges from tiny 1-gram wafers sold to retail savers up to the 400-ounce (roughly 12.5 kg) 'Good Delivery' bars that move between central banks and bullion banks in vault-to-vault transfers. Bullion trades close to the prevailing spot gold price, with only a small premium over metal value to cover refining, fabrication and dealer margin, which is what separates it from jewellery, where making charges and design work can add a much larger markup on top of the gold price.
How It's Manufactured
Bullion starts either as newly mined doré — an unrefined gold-silver alloy poured at the mine site — or as recycled scrap gold from jewellery, electronics and old bars. Refiners dissolve this raw material and separate the gold using one of two established processes: the Miller process, which bubbles chlorine gas through molten metal to remove base-metal impurities and reaches about 99.5% purity, or the slower, more expensive Wohlwill electrolytic process, which can push purity above 99.99% for bars needing the highest fineness. The refined gold is then cast into bars of standard weights or, for smaller bars, stamped from rolled sheet, with each bar assayed and stamped with its refiner's hallmark, serial number, weight and purity.
Byproducts
Refining doré into pure gold bullion also separates out the silver that's almost always alloyed with mined gold, along with smaller amounts of platinum-group metals and base metals like copper that can end up recovered and sold separately depending on the ore body. The Miller process itself produces a gold-silver-chlorine residue stream that refiners capture and reprocess rather than discard, since both the silver and any unreacted chlorine have value. Electronics and jewellery scrap sent for recycling likewise yields recovered silver, palladium and copper alongside the gold, making large refineries multi-metal recovery operations even when gold is the main product they're known for.
Who Consumes It
Central banks are the single largest institutional holders of gold bullion, building reserves as a hedge against currency risk and geopolitical uncertainty, and their collective buying or selling can move the gold market meaningfully. Bullion banks and dealers hold and trade bars to supply that demand and to service ETFs, which themselves must hold physical bullion to back the shares they issue. Below that sit sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and private institutional investors using bullion as a portfolio diversifier, and retail investors buying small bars directly from banks, refiners or jewellers as a straightforward way to own physical gold.
Everyday Uses
For most individual buyers, gold bullion functions as a savings vehicle rather than something used day to day — a small bar bought and locked away in a bank locker or home safe as a store of value, often bought around festivals or as a wedding gift in markets like India where physical gold ownership carries strong cultural weight. Some buyers use small bullion bars as informal collateral, pledging them for a gold loan when they need short-term cash without selling the metal outright. Because bullion carries a much smaller premium over spot price than jewellery, it's generally the more cost-efficient way to hold gold purely as an investment rather than to wear it.
Industrial Uses
Bullion itself sits mostly outside industrial supply chains — its main institutional role is as a reserve and investment asset rather than a manufacturing input. Where it does feed industry is upstream: refined bars and cast ingots are the feedstock jewellery manufacturers melt down and re-work into rings, chains and bangles, and the same refined gold supplies electronics makers who need small quantities of high-purity gold for plating connectors and bonding wire. Bullion also underpins gold-backed lending and leasing at an institutional scale, with bullion banks lending physical gold to jewellery manufacturers and other market participants who need working metal rather than tying up capital buying it outright.
Coverage
Indonesia Wants Its Households to Move $250 Billion of Hoarded Gold Into the Banking System to Shield the Rupiah
Indonesia is channeling an estimated 1,800 tons of privately held household gold, worth over $250 billion, into bullion banks to build a self-funded buffer for the rupiah against capital flight.
Venezuela Nears Deal to Move Disputed $4 Billion Gold Reserve From London to New York
Venezuela's interim government and opposition are nearing a deal to move 31 tonnes of gold worth about $4 billion from London's Bank of England to the New York Federal Reserve, pending a UK court's approval.
Gold Holds Near a Three-Month High as Traders Wait on US Inflation Data and Fed Chair Warsh's Speech
Gold is holding near a roughly three-month high above $4,600 an ounce as traders await Wednesday's core PCE inflation report and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Friday speech at Jackson Hole.
Gold Tops $4,500 as Surprise US Treasury Bond Buyback Sends Yields Sharply Lower
Gold jumped past $4,500 and silver surged toward $66 on August 19, reversing an early slide after the US Treasury said it would double bond buybacks, pulling Treasury yields sharply lower.
Central Banks Drive Gold's Best Month Since 1999 as Treasury Holdings Hit 14-Year Low
Gold surged about 10% since August 1 toward its best month since 1999, as record central bank gold buying — led by a record-reserve China — coincided with central banks' US Treasury holdings falling to a 14-year low.
