Gold Mint Runs Overtime in Race to Meet World Coin Demand.......Bloomberg

Gold Mint Runs Overtime in Race to Meet World Coin Demand

Austria’s mint is running 24 hours a day to meet orders for gold coins, joining counterparts from the U.S. to the U.K. to Australia in reporting accelerating demand boosted by the bear market in bullion.

Austria’s Muenze Oesterreich AG mint hired extra employees and added a third eight-hour shift to the day in a bid to keep up with demand.

Sales by the U.S. Mint are set for the best month since April, when the metal plunged into a bear market.

Global mints are manufacturing as fast as they can after a 28 percent drop in gold prices last year, the biggest slump since 1981, attracted buyers of physical metal. The demand gains helped bullion rally for five straight weeks, the longest streak since September 2012.

Prices rebounded 7.2 percent since reaching a 34-month low in June as physical buying rose. The Shanghai Gold Exchange, China’s largest bullion bourse, delivered 2,197 metric tons to customers in 2013, compared with 1,139 tons in 2012, it said Jan. 15.

The Asian country topped India as the world’s top buyer last year as demand probably reached a record, the World Gold Council estimates.

The U.K.’s Royal Mint, which traces its history back more than 1,000 years, ran out of 2014 Sovereign gold coins because of “exceptional demand,” it said in a statement on Jan. 8.

Sales by the Perth Mint, which also has workers producing coins in three shifts a day, will probably beat last year’s record, Ron Currie, the marketing director, said Jan. 20.

The U.S. Mint, the world’s largest, sold 89,500 ounces so far this month.
The Austrian mint that makes Philharmonic coins, saw sales jump 36 percent last year and expects “good business” for the next couple of months,

“The market is very busy,” Lang said. “We can’t meet the demand, even if we work overtime.”