Recently, the news that the Philippines and Indonesia have classified coconut shell charred materials as dangerous goods has left Aunt Zhang, who is preparing to give her daughter a dowry, puzzled. These two seemingly unrelated items are closely linked through a covert supply chain, quietly increasing the cost of gold consumption for ordinary people and adding another layer of social context to the "wild surge" of gold prices in early 2026.
To understand the connection, we need to start with the "backstage heroes" behind the gold extraction process. The activated carbon powder based coconut shell, which is made from coconut shell carbonized materials after being activated at high temperatures, is the core raw material for gold extraction - its porous structure can efficiently adsorb the gold ions in the ore pulp like a "sponge", and then achieve gold recovery through desorption and electrolysis. Main gold extraction processes such as the carbon slurry method and heap leaching method all rely on it. Most of the high-end activated carbon used for gold extraction in China relies on imported coconut shell carbonized materials from Southeast Asia. Only professional manufacturers in places like Shandong and Henan need to import a large amount of such raw materials each year to support production.
However, starting from October 2025, this supply chain suddenly "got stuck". Due to some exporters lowering the moisture content to save on shipping costs, coconut charcoalized materials frequently caught fire during maritime transportation. Some shipping companies classified them as hazardous materials. The ripple effects of this change were far beyond imagination: the price of hazardous cargo compartments was several to ten times that of ordinary goods. In addition, extra costs for handling hazardous materials, supervision fees, as well as costs for obtaining hazardous package certificates and leasing special containers had to be paid. As a result, the transportation cost of each ton of coconut charcoalized materials skyrocketed by hundreds to thousands of yuan overnight.
The cost pressure soon spread up the industrial chain. The price of domestic activated carbon powder based coconut shell soared from 12,000 yuan per ton to over 20,000 yuan within a year. The price of high-end gold-specific activated carbon even exceeded 25,000 yuan per ton, with the highest increase reaching 100%. For gold smelting enterprises, the increase in raw material costs directly pushed up production losses, and this part of the cost would inevitably be passed on to the end market. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in December 2025, the year-on-year increase in domestic gold jewelry prices has expanded to 68.5%. At the beginning of 2026, the per-gram price of mainstream brand gold jewelry exceeded 1,360 yuan, up by more than 70% compared to a year ago. Among them, there was an impact from fluctuations in the raw material supply chain.
However, ordinary people need not be overly worried. The classification of activated carbon powder based coconut shell as a dangerous item is not a global policy. Some enterprises have begun to adjust their strategies. Either they build factories in Southeast Asia to process the carbonized material into finished activated carbon (the finished product is a common commodity, reducing transportation costs significantly), or they look for alternative raw materials such as coal-based or wood-based activated carbon. In the long run, the gold price is more influenced by macro factors such as the policies of the Federal Reserve, geopolitics, and central bank gold purchases. The fluctuations brought about by coconut shell carbonized material are more of a short-term boost and will not change its long-term trend.
The seemingly distant coconut shell carbonized material eventually, through the transmission of the industrial chain, transformed into real gold in the jewelry boxes of ordinary people and in their investment accounts. This chain reaction triggered by the supply chain also reminds us: In the era of globalization, any change in a specific field can affect daily life. Instead of worrying about "whether to buy gold now", it is better to maintain a rational mindset and plan consumption and investment based on one's own needs, making gold truly become the "calming factor" of life, rather than the "igniter" of anxiety.