Expertise and career highlights

Dr Ralph Grimble leads the delivery of SFA (Oxford)'s market research. Ralph is a Principal Commodities Analyst leading macroeconomic and investment expert. His analysis underpins all of SFA's market intelligence assignments. Working across the SFA teams, Ralph is the gatekeeper to SFA's metal price forecasts for clients. Ralph was promoted to the Board in 2022.

Ralph heads up SFA's contribution to the weekly commodity market report in collaboration with Heraeus Precious Metals, including gold, silver and PGMs, to keep the precious metals value chain abreast of market development, including institutional funds and investors, and key industry stakeholders. 

Ralph has participated in PGM value chain and recycling consulting projects. Ralph authored SFA's Monthly Commodity Report which charts the price, supply, stocks and demand movements of nine key commodities across base and precious metals and oil. He has also been responsible for a major gold cost study, covering the production and peer-group rankings of over 340 operations worldwide, updated annually.

Ralph has maintained databases and analyses on cobalt mine production from copper and nickel operations for our battery materials research. He led the team to deliver timely quarterly market analysis for the World Platinum Investment Council.

Prior to joining SFA, Ralph completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Oxford in chemistry and materials science. He is an experienced analyst with a background in science research at the University of Oxford, as well as experience in logistics markets and business environment analysis.