“We produce about 330 tons of gold a year worth about $20 billion, 10 percent of the world volume. Diverting such amounts of metal to new paths is not feasible (…) there are simply no free niches,” he told the Sputnik news agency.
The union leader added that there is “a small group of players who have known each other for decades” in the market and that gold “has not been in short supply globally for the last 10 years”.
In that sense, Kashuba argued that, on the contrary, there is a surplus on the order of one to two percent, “so it’s almost unlikely to just offload production to anyone,” he warned.
At the same time, he confirmed the announcement by the G7 economies (Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom) that they will act together to reduce Russia’s earnings from exports of the metal do not catch the sector .
The executive reminded that early last March the organization that controls the precious metals market in London, the London Bullion Market Association, suspended six Russian gold refiners that are on the Good Delivery List.
In this regard, he added that at the end of the same month, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on transactions involving metal related to the Bank of Russia.
“We were aware that hostile countries would sooner or later extend their sanctions to gold production in Russia,” admitted the union leader.
For his part, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said last week that the ban on gold exports will have no impact on the national economy.
In this respect, the supposed case of sanctions is not just about exports to western countries, since Russia counts economic giants like China and India among its potential customers.
The diplomat’s comments come in line with an announcement by European Council President Charles Michel, who stated that the community bloc is investigating how refusing to import Russian gold only harms Moscow.
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