Koos Jansen continues his brilliant work and reports that gold demand in China remains very strong. It is the very interesting confirmation for the strong physical market in light of the recent call from Charles Nenner for Gold cycle to bottom now. Capitulation in Gold miners last week "leaves no hope for any life after death in the sector", calls for gold below $1,000 are getting louder - are these the real signs of the bottom to be made now?
Charles Nenner: Scary Deflation on Horizon, Sees Gold Cycle Bottom at 1150.
Charles Nenner: "We are at the bottom of the cycle for Gold with $1150 target." Nobody knows the future for sure, but this interview is very interesting - it was published on October 7, 2014, particularly when you consider the last week blood bath in gold miners which looks like total capitulation. Can Swiss Gold Referendum bring us necessary catalyst? Read more."
Koss Jansen:
Insatiable Chinese Gold Demand Continues Unabated
Friday the latest update was published on withdrawals of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) and Shanghai International Gold Exchange (SGEI). As I’ve written last week this number does not exactly equal Chinese gold demand anymore, but for the time being it’s a very accurate benchmark.
Total withdrawals in week 43 (October 20 – 24) accounted for 60 tonnes and year to date the counter has reached 1607 tonnes. How is this gold supplied? The SGE is supplied by imported gold, domestically mined gold and recycled (or scrap) gold. The amount withdrawn from the vaults equals total demand equals total supply equals import + mine + scrap, because once bars leave SGE vaults they are not allowed to return before being remelted and re-assayed again and counted as recycled.
Import = SGE withdrawals – mine – scrap
Let’s fill in the blanks. SGE withdrawals are weekly disclosed by the SGE and domestic mining will be 451 tonnes in total this year. How much is recycled gold? In the China Gold Yearbook 2014 (that covers the financial year 2013), it was disclosed recycled gold was 247 tonnes in 2013, and 232 tonnes in 2012.
Based on these numbers let’s estimate scrap will be 239 tonnes in 2014. Now we can calculate import.
As we can see in the table, China has net imported 46.7 tonnes in week 43 and 1036 tonnes year to date (until October 24). Note, these are estimates, but have proven to be very precise.
I’ve been reporting on these numbers for a while now and sometimes I don’t realize anymore how much gold we’re actually talking about. While 99 % of the financial industry has no idea how much gold is being soaked up by China – because they rely on numbers from the World Gold Council – we (me and regular readers) are almost habituated to these immense numbers. 46.7 tonnes of gold are 3,736 London Good Delivery bars, more than 46 thousand 1 Kg bars and about the same amount as the official reserves of Finland, imported in one week! Additionally, this excludes PBOC purchases, which is not being bought through the SGE, according to an SGE official. Though a CGA official confirmedthe PBOC is buying continuously.
Taking a step back and rethink what’s currently going on in the Chinese gold market will be quite an intriguing chapter in history books. “China bought all that gold at those prices while the whole world was watching?”, readers will wonder, “and this wasn’t noticed by any journalists? While clearly the fiat international monetary system came to an end?”, as I imagine.
The pattern is as clear as can be; the lower the price of gold the more the Chinese buy. As of October 31 (week 44) the price of gold fell to $1,172 an ounce. Did the Chinese bought some more?
I expect they did. Notice that demand in December and January is always elevated in China, there will be strong demand in the coming months.
In 2013 and in H1 of 2014, the gold sold through the SGE could be clearly traced back to its source by official customs data. Most of the gold came from London (home of the London Bullion Market and GLD), which was shipped to Switzerland to be refined in 1 Kg bars and then sent on to China via Hong Kong. The numbers made perfect sense, in 2013 China net imported 1,500 tonnes from the West, they mined about 450 tonnes and recycled gold was 250 tonnes, henceSGE withdrawals accounted for 2,200 tonnes.
In recent months the trade numbers make less sense with regard to the amount of gold sold through the SGE, which leaves the question; who is selling these huge amounts of physical gold – under the radar – for bottom prices to China? I will spent a future post speculating on this question.
I noticed the gold premium on the SGEI jumped from the SGE on Thursday, meaning gold in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SGEI) is more expensive than in the mainland (SGE).
Foreigners trading on the SGE can not export the gold from the mainland, this is prohibited by the PBOC. Chinese banks (the ones blessed with a PBOC import license) that trade on the SGEI can import gold into the mainland. Effectively the arbitrage opportunity can only be closed one way; if SGEI gold in the FTZ is cheaper than SGE gold in the mainland, the Chinese banks can buy and import gold from the FTZ until the difference is nullified. Of course when SGEI gold is more expensive than SGE gold, the Chinese banks in the mainland have no interest to import SGEI gold.
The fact that trading volume on the SGEI dropped 1.7 tonnes from 4 tonnes in week 43 to 2.3 tonnes in week 44 hints at much of the volume traded on the SGEI is done by domestic banks. Hence SGEI volume drops if it’s price rises relative to SGE prices.
Click here to read a comprehensive analysis of the workings of the SGEI.
Silver
The discount of silver in China compared to London is still hovering below 4 % (measured until October 31).
The decline in the discount of silver can be explained by high demand in the mainland, but it can also been caused by high demand from abroad. As we learned last week (click for a detailed analysis) Chinese traders found a way to export silver circumventing a 17 % VAT on silver bullion export – I don’t know the amount of silver involved in the scheme.
Some of the silver that was depleted from the SHFE inventories can have been used for this export scheme. Even more silver can have been exported as the SHFE inventories are not the only stocks in the mainland.
Silver on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) is trading in backwardation, since August 6. This also could have been caused by the export scheme. I will try to figure out how much silver was exported through the scheme, as this will provide us more information on the implications it has caused in the Chinese silver market.
One thing is for sure, the declining silver discount in the mainland and concurrent backwardation were caused by high demand, wether from abroad or the mainland.
Koos Jansen"
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