1. Indian oil consumption = 3.1 M bbl/day

I find it helpful if I can visualize things to get a handle on what the numbers are actually saying. Here's what 3.16 M bbls of oil looks like. It's a T1 class tanker - largest in the world as of 2008 and (just by coincidence) can carry exactly one day's worth of Indian oil consumption.

http://www.aukevisser.nl/supertankers/id93.htm

And here's what $8M in gold looks like at today's prices:

http://www.goldingot.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/38.jpg

Those are 400 troy ounce ingots and there's 12 of them, so at current prices it would take 42 of those stacks, or 504 gold ingots to purchase that cargo.

And that's just one day!

ebear