If the supply does not exist, how can there be a contract for it?

If we buy a contract, does there not have to be one in the first place?

How can there be 245,540 contracts, but only 26,000 delivered on?

When we as speculators offset a long, all we are really doing is passing it on to the next speculator. Eventually, the market runs out of speculators to pass it to(like when it expires). It's got to end up with an end user, or who would buy it? How could the last speculator in the chain offset, if there were no end user in the mix?