COMEX Gold Deliveries Continue

The incredible pace of COMEX "deliveries" continues in May, and the offtake has reached levels not seen in decades. You've been told that this is all due to "tariff concerns", but we now know that gold is not subject to any new tariffs from the Trump administration. So, what's going on here?

Since December of 2024, the COMEX has experienced near-record delivery demands for their futures contracts. You've likely been told by the mainstream financial media and/or the internet that this sudden demand for physical delivery is due simply to the expectation of new tariffs from the United States. Is that an accurate and honest explanation?

In late January, yours truly began to suspect that this tariff excuse was simply a cover story for a physical supply squeeze, and by early February, I began writing about what I believed was actually driving the situation. Here's a link from February 3, and there are other articles for you to review in the Sprott Money archives.

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To wit, I believe that the supply of gold in London is extremely tight after three years of record central bank demand. In February, The Financial Times of London noted that delivery delays of up to eight weeks were being reported at the LBMA, and those delays persist today. Note that the FT blames the delays on "possible tariffs"—tariffs that we now know never came into existence.

Yet the delivery demands continue. The COMEX was never designed to be a physical delivery market, and delivery demand has historically trended to just 2-4% of the total contract open interest. Average open interest might be 500,000 contracts, and delivery totals in the February/April/June/August/December "delivery months" would average about 15,000 with non-delivery months in the 2,000-4,000 range. See the table below that shows all deliveries in calendar year 2023:

Delivery demand began to increase in 2024 and has since exploded in 2025. By how much? See below and contrast the numbers to 2023:

As you can see, not only have the "delivery months" of February and April seen record or near-record delivery demands, the non-delivery months of January, March, and May are seeing demands in excess of what used to be seen in February, April, June, August, and December. Additionally, these demands are in the range of 5-15% of total contract open interest or about 3X the historical average.

The "non-delivery" Jan25 contract went off the board and into its delivery phase on December 30. That evening, there were just 3,258 Jan25s open and "standing for delivery". Had the month progressed like January of 2023, for example, there may have been just 6,000 deliveries. Instead, there were 22,538—nearly as many as the "delivery month" of Dec24.

The "non-delivery" Mar25 contract went off the board on February 27 with 10,210 contracts still open. Another 9,188 appeared during the month and 19,398 deliveries were made.

Now here's where it gets interesting...

If this was all about "tariff concerns", then we should now expect this surge of COMEX delivery demand to come to a screeching halt. Why? Because it was made clear back on April 2 that gold will NOT be subject to any new tariffs by the U.S. government. See this summary from Reuters.

ECB Gold Market Concerns

So delivery demands on COMEX returned to "normal" in April, right? RIGHT?? Nope. Recall that the Apr25 contract saw a total of 64,806 deliveries. That's less than February but still 2.5X what was seen in 2023 and 4-5X the historical average.

What about May? Surely gold's exemption from tariffs has eased the COMEX delivery demands for the "non-delivery" May25. Again, nope. There were 9,306 May25s still open when that contract went off the board on April 29. As you can see below, there have already been 23,134 deliveries posted through May 16. That's more than the entire month of January, when "tariff concerns" allegedly drove the sudden spike in deliveries.

So what the heck is going on here? By now, it should be obvious to every impartial observer that this extreme offtake from COMEX is NOT being driven by "tariff concerns". Something else seems to be afoot, and now even the European Central Bank is beginning to express concerns.

This next link is something that EVERYONE with an interest in gold should read. Since 2010 at TF Metals Report, we've been warning about the eventual collapse of the NY/London gold pool and its derivative-based, fractional reserve pricing scheme. Many major financial institutions are heavily leveraged within the gold forward and futures markets, and these unallocated positions pose significant risks to the global financial system. Don't believe me? See this from the ECB.

As such, consider this one of your final warnings. Global demand for physical gold has depleted the readily available supply of gold in London, and record demand on COMEX continues unabated. If the ECB is concerned about the risks to the global financial system from the forced deleveraging of the gold market, YOU should be too.

Your best move is to claim your gold while you can. The only gold without significant counterparty risk is the gold you store outside of the banking system or in your own personal vault. All evidence suggests that time is short. Do not delay in securing your personal stack.

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