Demand For Physical Precious Metals Surge Due To Fears About Disruptions In The Global Supply Chain
According to a precious metals dealer I spoke with, the world out on the street is that demand for gold and silver has recently surged due to investor concerns about a disruption to the Global Supply Chain. We are already seeing a massive slowdown in China’s oil demand as official reports show a 20% reduction in oil consumption.
However, I believe China’s oil demand is much lower than the 20% figure reported by Bloomberg and reposted by Gulfnews.com on Feb. 3rd:
According to the article, China’s total oil demand is approximately 14 million barrels per day (mbd). The IEA, International Energy Agency, in their January 2020 OMR Report reported that China’s total oil demand would reach 14,046,000 mbd in 2020. Using the IEA’s data, here is China’s total oil consumption from 2017-2019, including the forecast for 2020, and the significant drop in demand in February:
The Bloomberg article stated that China’s total oil demand was down approximately 3 mbd by early February. Again, the article was published on Feb. 2nd. For China to cut 20% of its oil consumption… THAT’S A BIG DEAL. But, I think it’s much worse than that. According to the next two charts, one is taken from a new article on Gail Tverberg’s Ourfiniteworld.com website, and the other is from Capital Economics.
The first chart from CapitalEconomics.com shows a huge reduction in China’s Daily Passenger Traffic, including road, railway, freight, and ship:
The RED ARROW indicates when Bloomberg reported the 3 mbd decline in China’s total oil demand. Who knows at what date Bloomberg used to base their figure on 3 mbd drop in oil consumption, but this chart shows that total China daily traffic is down about 80% since January if we go by the right-hand scale. Thus, this chart reveals that China’s daily traffic flow has been down approximately 80% for more than two weeks.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
