First some good news (ish) - The last few weeks have seen the huge premium for between COMEX futures and spot compress as Bloomberg reports that Australia's largest gold refinery has ramped up production of one kilogram bars to ease the supply squeeze in the US. 

"We're producing as many kilobars as we can, we're probably churning out seven and a half tons of them a week at the moment and we are forward sold well into May," Richard Hayes, chief executive officer of the Perth Mint, said in an interview.

"A very large portion of those kilobars are ending up as Comex deliveries."

The mint, which reopened a kilobar production line in response to the supply crunch, expects elevated demand to prove to be only a short-term issue.