Major ClientsThin moat

Barrick Mining (B) — moat facet

Barrick has no customers in any ordinary sense, and the buyers now setting its price are central banks and index funds rather than anyone who wants to wear the metal.

Ask who Barrick's biggest customer is and there is no answer, because there is no relationship to describe. Gold is sold into a market at a benchmark price fixed twice a day in London. There is no negotiation, no contract to renew, no account to lose, no discount schedule and no buyer who could be persuaded to pay more. Barrick's commercial function is to produce metal and accept the published number. Its statements do record three buyers, unnamed, that each took more than 10% of 2025 revenue, about 26%, 12% and 11%, and say in the same note that because gold can be sold through numerous traders worldwide, Barrick is not economically dependent on any of them2.

Gold demand 2025, by buyer (4,999.4t)Jewellery - 1,542.3t — 31%Bar and coin - 1,374.1t — 27%Central banks - 863.3t — 17%ETFs - 801.2t — 16%Technology and other - ~418t — 8%Total demand passed 5,000t for the first time, worth $555bn, on 53 record price highs.
Barrick has no customers. What matters is who is buying the metal, and it has changed.

That is the purest expression of the near-moatless case this company was included to illustrate. Every other business in this collection can point at somebody who chose it. Barrick cannot, because nobody chooses a particular producer's gold — the metal is fungible, and an ounce from Nevada is indistinguishable from an ounce recycled out of a wedding ring.

What is worth understanding instead is who is buying the metal at all, because the composition of demand has changed dramatically and it determines the price that determines Barrick's earnings. In 2025 total demand exceeded 5,000 tonnes for the first time, with 53 record highs in the price and an unprecedented value of $555 billion. Central banks took 863 tonnes. Exchange-traded funds took another 801. Jewellery — for centuries the largest use of gold — fell 18 percent in tonnage even as its value rose1.

So the buyers holding up Barrick's price are increasingly institutions accumulating a reserve asset, and decreasingly people who want to wear it.

The fourth page covers the one business where Barrick will genuinely have customers: copper, sold under contract to smelters.

The number that tests this moat
Moat Explorer calc
Central bank and ETF gold purchases, combined
1,664.5t of more than 5,000t of 2025 demand

Barrick has no customer to lose, so what matters is who is buying. About a third of demand came from central banks and funds holding gold as a store of value rather than consuming it; a sharp fall in that share would remove the buyers who kept prices high.

How it's calculated: Central bank purchases (863.3t) plus ETF inflows (801.2t), against total demand including OTC above 5,000t.
Source: World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends full year 2025 ↗
Dig deeper
DIG DEEPER 01
The Buyer Who Never Signs Anything
No concentration, no contracts and no negotiation -- and therefore no pricing power, no switching costs and no way to be preferred.
DIG DEEPER 02
The Central Banks Who Became the Marginal Buyer
863 tonnes bought by institutions with no economic anchor under the decision -- price-insensitive in both directions, and able to stop by committee.
DIG DEEPER 03
The Jewellery Buyer Being Priced Out
The demand that actually consumes gold fell 18 percent in tonnes at exactly the price that makes Barrick's mines profitable.
DIG DEEPER 04
The Copper Smelters, Where Barrick Will Have Real Customers
Concentrate is sold under negotiated multi-year offtake to a small number of smelters -- the first customer relationship this company will ever have…
References
  1. ReportedTotal gold demand including OTC exceeded 5,000t for the first time in 2025, worth US$555bn on 53 record price highs, with central banks taking 863.3t, ETFs 801.2t and jewellery consumption falling 18% to 1,542.3t.
    World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Q4 and Full Year 2025 — total gold demand including OTC exceeded 5,000t for the first time, worth an unprecedented US$555bn (+45%), with the LBMA gold price setting 53 new all-time highs during 2025; the annual average price was US$3,431.5/oz (+44%) and the Q4 average a record US$4,135.2/oz (+55%). Supply: mine production a record 3,671.6t (+1%), net producer hedging -73.6t, recycled gold 1,404.3t (+3%) — described as a relatively muted response to a 67% increase in the US dollar gold price — for total supply of 5,002.3t. Demand: jewellery fabrication 1,638.0t (-19%) and jewellery consumption 1,542.3t (-18%) with jewellery demand value up 18% to a record; bar and coin 1,374.1t (+16%), a 12-year high; ETFs and similar products +801.2t against -2.9t in 2024, the second strongest year on record; central banks and other institutions 863.3t against 1,092.4t, at the upper end of the expected range, historically elevated and geographically widespread but slowed from their recent pace — FY2025 · publ. 2026-01-29 · source ↗
  2. ReportedBarrick's statements record three buyers that each took more than 10% of 2025 revenue, about 26%, 12% and 11%, and say Barrick is not economically dependent on them because gold can be sold through numerous traders.
    Barrick year-end 2025 consolidated financial statements (40-F exhibit 99.3), note 6 Revenue - gold sales $15,147M, copper sales $1,475M, other sales $334M, total $16,956M (2024: $12,922M); three customers individually above 10% of revenue, about 26%, 12% and 11%, but gold can be sold through numerous traders, so the Company is not economically dependent on them — FY2025 · publ. 2026-02-27 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026