If we consider the situation as a whole, then in the world there is a sufficient amount of gold, which is stored, for example, in the vaults of the Central banks. At least this is officially reported. A few weeks ago, the global gold market began to fever.
As it turned out, real physical gold is not in those places where it is most in demand in the right form. Physical gold cannot be produced at the touch of a button and transferred electronically to anywhere in the world.
It is worth saying that over the past few days, the supply situation has improved slightly. However, gold mining and refining is still frozen. Due to quarantine, many transport routes were blocked or severely restricted. A particularly strong shortage of gold was observed in the American futures market. But London decided to help colleagues, as the city has a sufficient number of bank gold bars weighing 400 ounces.
It is worth recalling that 400 gold ounces of gold are traded on the London gold market, while in New York it is customary to trade 100 ounces and 1 kg bullion. Recently, a shortage of 100 ounces of bars has appeared on the COMEX New York Futures Exchange, although Swiss refineries have resumed their work after a 2-week quarantine.
In the pre-crisis time, gold bullion was transported between countries by passenger aircraft. But, as you know, most scheduled flights were canceled due to the spread of the coronavirus around the world. For this reason, there were interruptions in the transportation of yellow precious metals between countries. “All companies want to place their gold on the plane. There is a real struggle for a place, ”said Drazen Repak, a representative of a Swiss bank. Experts say that the international gold market will again function smoothly only when transportation is restored. But now no one can say for sure when this will happen.