First published by Money Metals here: https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2017/10/19/fragile-gold-industry-001181

The gold industry has been built on the leveraging of debt and energy. The days of using human and animal labor to produce the precious yellow metal are long gone. While some gold is still mined the old fashion way, the overwhelming majority is produced by using colossal-sized mining equipment, massive amounts of capital, energy, and materials. Thus, the global gold supply comes via a very complex industry with a lot of moving parts. When one of these critical parts are in short supply or removed, then the entire gold supply system disintegrates.