Why we will not name the mill before contract, and why that protects you

The single most misunderstood rule in this trade is why a seller will not name the mill before there is a contract. To a new buyer it reads like something to hide. It is the opposite of that, and it is worth setting out in full, because the misunderstanding costs both sides time they did not need to lose.

Until the contract is signed and the payment instrument and our performance guarantee are in place, we release nothing that identifies the mill or refinery: its registration numbers, its location, the specific loading terminal, its letterhead, or photographs that give it away. The same holds for Bills of Lading, certificates of analysis, phytosanitary and origin certificates, and warehouse or tank receipts. Not because they do not exist, but because releasing them early exposes the one thing the whole structure is built to protect.

There are two reasons, and the second is the one buyers rarely hear. First, in a market where a supplier can be circumvented the moment it is named, protecting origin is what keeps the supplier willing to allocate product at all. A mill that has been burned once stops offering, and the buyers downstream lose access they never knew they had. Second, and directly in the buyer's favour: documents from earlier shipments belong to other buyers. Handing them out would break our confidentiality to those parties. When you are the one under contract, your documents receive exactly the same protection. A desk that leaks one buyer's papers to win your trust will leak yours to win the next enquiry.

Not by looking at the origin. By inspecting your cargo at loading, through SGS or Intertek, against the specification written into your contract. That is a stronger proof than any document carrying a mill's name, because it is performed on the goods you are actually buying, at the moment they ship. Origin protection and product verification are not in tension. One simply replaces the other with something better.