Russian Gold Reserves.

Russian Gold Purchases in August 2015.

Russia added one million ounces (31.1 tons) of gold to its reserves in August.

Russia Boosts Gold Reserves and U.S. Treasury Holdings.

Russian Gold Reserves

It was reported today that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation announced its official August 2015 reserve assets and other foreign currency assets report indicating that its gold reserves had increased 1,000,000 ounces from its July 2015 report to 42.4 million ounces.

Russia added one million ounces of gold to its reserves in 2015 through August.

Since 2009 Russia has added more than 711 tons of gold to its reserves more than China who added (623 tons) during the same time period. The increase in August reserves was the most since March 2015 when Russia also added one million ounces of gold to its reserves.

The Russian Central Bank recently announced that they would be boosting their foreign reserves by about 40% from $356 billion to about $500 billion.

“Recent experiences forced us to reconsider some of our ideas about sufficient and comfortable levels of gold reserves,” said Elvira Nabiullina, Chairwoman Russian Central Bank.

Russia has been rebalancing its foreign reserves to favor gold vs. U.S. Treasury Bonds. Russia’s gold buying binge has coincided with a steady sell off of her U.S. Treasuries. It might be expected that as Russia increases its foreign reserves it would do so at least in proportion with that of its current gold reserves.

Russian Monthly Gold Purchases June 2014 – August 2015

Russia has added 7.7 million ounces (239 tonnes) to its reserves from June 2014 through August 2015 and 3.6 million ounces (112 tonnes) from January 2015 through August 2015.

In a recent CNBC interview Ms. Nabiullina remarked on Russia’s increasing gold reserves “…we base ourselves upon the principles of diversification of our international reserves and we bought gold not only last year but during the previous years. Our gold mining industry is very well developed and it is ready to supply gold. That is why our attitude towards here is based upon diversification of our reserves.”

Ms. Nabiullina also dispelled the notion that the objective to increase Russia’s gold reserves was a function of buying up domestic gold supply that could not be sold abroad: “…we don’t run the objective to support any specific industry. In terms of the share of gold, actually we are not holding the records because there are countries that have a bigger share of gold in their reserves.”

In July Russia added 400,000 ounces of gold to its reserves and $9.7 billion of U.S. Treasuries.

Russian Gold Reserves in Tons 1994-2015

Russian U.S. Treasury Holdings

Russia’s U.S. Treasury Bond Holdings January 2014-July 2015