First Day deliveries.

The five banks that clear gold trades in the London market are considering expanding their network of storage locations to other countries if it becomes impossible to fly enough gold in and out of London, said two sources involved in the discussions.

The move would be aimed at reducing the risk of disruption if metal cannot reach London, the world’s most important physical gold trading hub, where trades are underpinned by metal held in high-security vaults.

So what is exactly going on here? Who is bailing out who? The same bullion banks operate in both markets. Is the LBMA bailing out some of its bullion bank members that have blown up while at the same time propping up the COMEX edifice? If so, with the LBMA just being a trade association with the bullion banks at the helm, where are the 400 oz gold bars coming from? The HSBC or JP Morgan vaults in London? Or that famous gold lender of last resort, the Bank of England?

Tuesday evening, the futures exchange announced the launch of a new gold futures contract with expanded delivery options that include 100-troy ounce, 400-troy ounce and 1-kilo gold bars.

The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) and several major banks that trade gold have asked U.S. exchange operator CME Group Inc CME.O to allow gold bars in London to be used to settle its contracts to ease disruption to trading, sources said.

CME raises silver margins by 14.3%

Gold & Silver margins raised 9.1%

CME raises gold margins by 11% & silver margins by 6%

But with only 1173 tonnes of real physical gold held in the LBMA commercial vaults that is unconnected to ETFs out of a total of 3076 tonnes, this means that only 38% of the gold in the LBMA commercial vaults is available to support the London gold market. However, in reality, out of the ‘record’ 8228 tonnes of gold which the LBMA claims is held in London, only 14% of this total (1173 tonnes) is available to ‘underpin’ the giant gold trading and clearing casino that is the London gold market on any normal trading day.