I don’t usually go into something that is not mainstream, but this is instructive. HCSB bank lost $200 Million dollars in one day because it couldn’t move gold from London to New York to address a disparity between the price of gold in London vs. the price in New York. The reasons highlighted below are the same as seen by many logistics managers:
- Lift capacity – airlines have cut flights
- Lack of standardization – Gold bars in the US are a different size, so gold has to move via Switzerland, where it is re-melted
- Constrained storage capacity…there are 1000 tons of gold stored in the New York area – 66% of it arrived in the last 3 months
BP PLC is writing down up to $17.5 billion of its assets, potentially leaving some of its oil and gas in the ground. They project oil to be priced at $55/barrel. Meanwhile, US shale producers are suffering as banks pull financing.