Peter Krauth: Silver Industrial Demand Taking 70% of Annual Supply, Silver Supply Takes 10-15 Years?
Summary
Jason Burack of Wall St for Main St interviewed returning guest, former investment bank commodities analyst and silver expert, …
Transcript
Hi everyone, this is Jason Ber of Wall Street from Main Street. Welcome back for another Wall Street for Main Street podcast interview. We're recording this interview on Thursday, December 11th, 2025. The silver price has skyrocketed a lot over the last uh six or seven months. I remember speaking with my returning guest, I think I think I interviewed him a number of times over the years. If I remember correctly, we first started speaking when the silver was in the low 20s about 18 months ago and no one wanted to talk about it. Was a contrarian value play. I used to get messages all the time. Why are you saying anything nice about silver? It's a dog. It's never going to go up. They're never going to allow it to go up. He was writing the silver stock investor newsletter. He also put out a book on silver, one of the only books on silver. It's comprehensive called The Great Silver Bull. I think about two years ago. Peter Kra, thank you for joining me again. >> Jason, well, thank you for having me back. Um, great intro. [laughter] I appreciate it. >> Yeah, I remember when when you first came on for silver and everyone was like, why are we even talking about silver? It was like one of the most the sentiment levels were so bearish and now here we are what we're over $63 an ounce for silver. It's just gone parabolic in what the last seven or eight months. >> Exactly. and and you know um your point is well taken because if there's ever ever an indicator of you know what kinds of things you should be looking at it's those things that that people are responding like that to because that that tells you that there's almost nobody left to sell and and that's when you want to be buying. I mean, it's not easy and it doesn't mean you have to go all in, but that tends to be the best time. And, you know, um, the last couple of years have have proven that to be the case. So, it's it's exciting times. And, you know, it's obviously a lot less contrarian now. People are sort of falling over themselves to get in. But um I think that uh that said um we are in new territory and and I've heard from some some fantastic uh analysts and and even you know uh investors/traders who are very wellversed in this uh in this area and they said look the moment you get over 50 and you can see that 50 is maintaining itself it becomes a new floor and I and I have said that several times as well that um you're in uncharted waters or uncharted territory so you and quickly run up to, you know, 60, 70, uh, 80. Um, you know, those these kinds of numbers are becoming, um, a lot more, I guess, what you would call realistic and or ac accessible now that we've we've broken through. And a lot of people are really surprised by this. I mean, I'm going to say to be fair, myself to some extent, I am surprised, too. This has run faster than than uh my my uh my expectations were. Yeah, I would say it's a short squeeze now that basically there's a huge there's a short squeeze with the uh whe whether it's on the COMX, the LBMA, the Shanghai gold exchange for delivery of physical silver and there's a lot of people piling on to the long side. But I wanted your to bring you back on for an update on actual supply and demand because um for industrial demand for China and India for solar panels, hasn't the demand been increasing enormously over the last couple years for industrial demand for China and India? Is it mostly solar panels or is there other uses? >> So, there are other uses and we can get into that a little bit, but uh yes, absolutely. You know, I think I've said this before. Solar is the what I call the 800 lb gorilla in the silver sector. Um solar is we're talking about 200 million ounces out of a 1 billion ounce market every year. So, 20% of all the silver goes to that single use being solar panels. Um so you know uh that is definitely a a sector to watch. I've been hearing a little bit in sort of recent weeks that you know the the um the the demand may kind of sort of ease it. Not that it won't continue to grow but it will potentially continue to grow at a little bit slower pace going forward. Part of that because of the silver price, the manufacturers are trying to are really being sort of uh uh aggressive on thrifting, looking for ways that they can they can cut silver out of the panels and keep them as efficient as they are. Um and you know, some of them are looking at other metals, but realistically, I have seen nothing where other metals are real are are uh are a threat because um you know, you've got copper, for example, but it corrods quickly, far less efficient than silver. and uh you know it's it's it's very very difficult to replace that said all of that said the you know the the uh other side of that coin is that um we we are transitioning from the old technology called perk these are all acronyms from perk to um uh topcon which takes about 50% more silver per panel and then uh after topcon the next um technology is HJT and that takes up to 150% % more silver per panel. So already we're seeing um something like 60 or 70% of all of the new solar panels being manufactured uh using the technology Topcon. So uh that I believe is going to compensate for a lot of the potential thrifting and um you've got different areas of the world that are you know uh maybe sort of easing on support. China is one of them and that's definitely one to watch because China is very very big, you know, dominating solar panel manufacturing worldwide. I'm going to say to the tune of at least 80%. So definitely you want to watch what's happening in China. There's been there's been a lot of uh of government policy to support um solar and uh my understanding is that uh you know has or is close to ending. So that may uh sort of take the foot off the gas a little bit in terms of solar panel production in China. But then you've got other areas in the world that are very very supportive uh you know because this is considered a uh low or no carbon um source of energy. >> Yeah. Hasn't India been the leader in silver imports? I think India has been importing even more silver than China has the last two or three years. >> Yes, exactly. It's been it's been off the charts. Part of it is uh in fact for uh for solar um uh installations. Part of it is for other indust industrial uses. They are big uh solar they're sorry big silver consumers when it comes to jewelry and silverware. And um one of the the sort of emerging areas has been um uh exchange traded funds. They've really really taken a liking to uh silver ETFs. They've grown very rapidly. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I know that it's been just absolute tremendous growth terms of the silver that's gone into um you know uh uh sponsored ETFs in India. So um you know gold's obviously gotten very expensive. They're they're very very big gold investors and so they're they're naturally turning to silver because gold has uh has seen it's you know so much of a rise and and a single ounce you know $4,200 let's say versus $60. Um one one's a lot uh more accessible than the other. And I was doing some research on some of the solar panels where people were trying to explain how the uh solar panel uh installers manufacturers were changing how they use silver on the solar panels. Initially, I think like four or five years ago, they would uh take this thick silver uh paste and it was made of a lot of silver and they would spread it on one side of the panel or both sides of the panel. And then they started cuz uh they were looking for new ways to remove the silver, but it wasn't as efficient. And then they decided that they could change the um consistency of the paste and and put in less silver, but they're putting it on both sides of the solar panel. Is that um kind of the layman's terms for how the um solar panels are changing now that they've gone back to pasting with silver kind of like silver mixed into this paste both sides of the solar panel now instead of one side but they're using less silver on each side of the panel but overall if they're making more solar panels what that's more total silver usage by volume. >> Yes, exactly. That that's my understanding of it as well. And something that I wanted to to touch on um when you're talking about um you know how how silver is used uh you know and the the demand of it from uh let's say the industrial sector. Well um some some really interesting numbers when it comes to uh electricity and and solar and and the demand. Now obviously AI has been like the thing for the last sort of year and a half two years. Um but uh if you look at the picks and shovels aspect of AI and of data centers, it really is pretty interesting. I think that it's something like 80% of data centers are located in the US globally. So data center electricity demand growth over the next um uh I believe it's over the next 5 years is expected to grow at 22% per year. AI which you layer on top of the data center uh electricity demand is expected to the electricity uh demand growth for AI is expected to rise by 31% per year over the next 5 years. So, you know, these these tech companies that are building out these big data centers, uh, and and by the way, AI uh an AI query takes 10 times as much electricity or power um as a as a an old old-fashioned now old-fashioned Google search. So, um that that's that's a lot more power uh required. And so, obviously, we know that a lot of these big tech companies are looking to be carbon neutral. they are um they are the first reaction was they we saw this with Microsoft they went to nuclear now there's a couple of reasons for it um nuclear is base load power it's relatively cheap um but you know not everybody's Microsoft Microsoft has billions of dollars tens of billions hundreds of billions they can throw at this um they were able to tap into um uh unused um excess capacity at 3M island so they were able to go in and revive that. I believe that's something that was already sort of permitted and so on. So, they were able to bring that uh online pretty quickly. Um there may have been another couple of examples of of these large uh you know uh mega cap tech companies that have been able to do something like that. Um I started saying that this is about a year and a half ago. I started saying that um solar was going to be a big beneficiary because uh yes um you know the these tech companies are going to nuclear as I say for for base load and so on but um what happens if you know once that let's say excess capacity is used up nuclear takes 15 years to permit and build uh solar takes a year and a half. So it's onetenth the time. So um and there's been a game changer I think on the uh on the solar side and that is batteries. So the latest stats that I have are that this year we're going to install batteries that will match the capacity of 2023. This is for solar specifically will match solar power capacity to the tune of 60% of 2023 installations. So battery uh capacity is catching up very very quickly to solar capacity. Uh battery production is falling in half over the next 5 years the cost to produce the batteries. So the reason I call it a gamecher is because batteries uh if you if you understand you know what that does for solar is essentially makes solar base load power. Obviously the sun does not shine at night. So, if you can store this excess capacity and then switch to battery, draw down on the stored power in the batteries at night, you know, bingo, you've got your uh you've got your base load power uh 24 hours and think about a data center that has the land for example, and many of them do. They've been very forward thinking and they've gone out bought these big tracks of land for for different reasons um mostly again in the US and they build out their data centers and um because they have all this land around the center they can build their own solar farm so they are completely self-sufficient they're not relying on a utility which by the way many of the utilities are saying to uh these data centers uh I'm sorry I don't think I can I can provide all this power that you need from me. So, they're they're having to do this, go out on their own and and uh generate their own power. So, solar is very attractive to them. It it's it's permitted very quickly. It's up and running very quickly and they are completely self-sufficient. So, um to me, it's not a surprise if we see continued uptake and and uh the the solar production and solar installations u surprise the you know, the the forecasters. I think that it's going to remain more robust than than they're uh than they're suggesting. >> So, so far you haven't seen any large industrial end users say because the silver price has gone up over the last 12 months from the low to mid 20s up to 60 that we're going to be delaying or stopping a usage of silver, looking to substitute. You haven't seen any big announcement saying that like they're delaying their silver purchases for 6 months or a year or anything like that? >> I I have not seen anything like that. Not at all. Not at all. I mean it's true like about a year and a half ago which obviously was in a different price environment um one um sort of larger silver producer the mining executive said to me that we've got um our we sell about half our production to China about half our production to the west and um and he said the Chinese buyers are coming to us and saying we will pay two pay you $2 over spot and we will pay you 2 weeks in advance of delivery. we want our silver that badly. So, um I know I have I have, you know, as I say, admittedly that's a while back, but I've I've heard nothing along those lines. The the closest I've heard to that is that they're they're trying to be, you know, a little bit more aggressive on the thrifting side. Um I I don't think that's going to be enough. You know, silver after oil is is the second has has this is has the is the commodity with the second most uses globally. So only oil has more applications than silver. And obviously oil is a much bigger market, but that's irrelevant. It's it's it's how silver is used. And it is really everywhere. I mean, I like to say that you're never more than about a meter or if you're in the US, a yard um away from some silver because it's it's in your um you know, your flat screen uh computer screen, it's in your um your uh smartphone, it's in your keyboard, it's in your microphone. It really is everywhere around you. So it it's you know one one uh big investor said to me lately um he said we call these critical minerals and maybe we can talk about that because it was designated a critical mineral in the US. Um he says we call them critical minerals. He says I I call silver um an essential mineral. You you pretty much um would have one heck of a time trying to function without it these days. It's everywhere. It really is. And the quantities are are often so small that the manufacturer will either absorb at least for a while, you know, perhaps the the higher cost because it's not that significant or if they decide to pass it on, um it's also not that significant. So it they don't have to raise their price that much. The small quantities, Peter, also make it extremely difficult to recycle because if silver is in tiny amounts in like electronics and electric vehicles and contact switches, what in cars, regular internal combustion engine cars in the electronics inside the car, I mean, it's just extremely difficult to recycle it. You need silver in the triple digits or higher and it for for it to stay there to even think about pulling out these tiny amounts of silver out of junkyards or landfills. >> Absolutely right. Yes. Exactly. that and that exacerbates you know uh the whole situation because your um your recycling is so just very quickly you know the silver market is about a billion ounces a year. We're talking about about 830 35 million ounces come from mining and about uh 190 or so million ounces. So about say 15 or 17% comes from uh recycling. And we're not expecting any kind of meaningful uh you know growth in in either of those by the way. So mine production peaked 10 years ago u 2016 900 million ounces. We've not been able to get meaningfully over about 830 or 835 million ounces ever since then. So mine supply has been essentially falling on balance and uh recycling has gone up a little bit uh but demand has grown and that's why we've seen these these inventories get drawn down so much. It's really um it's really you know the the the writing was on the wall if you were willing to to look at it and read it two or three years ago when I started talking about this. Um but but now the market's coming to terms with it. Well, when you were first coming on the show and silver was hated and it was contrarian. I mean, it was barely the price, the paper price of silver, the spot price was barely at the cost of production. I mean, a lot of these silver miners that we're talking about, first majestic silver, Pan-American, some of the Cordelane, some of the higher cost, heckla, some of the higher cost silver producers, they were struggling to make any type of profit and free cash flow margin. That's why they had to go and buy gold mines. >> Exactly. Exactly right. And interestingly enough, um you know, the ones that have the um the the narrowest margins or the tightest margins, uh when these prices jump like this, they get sort of the biggest boost because every sort of additional dollar in silver proportionally is a bigger percentage gain in profits. So then they they tend to have the biggest leverage and they can just absolutely soar and that's what we've seen uh pretty much most of this year. So I want to ask about the supply response. So I think what the average listener doesn't understand is that the majority of annual silver supply is a byproduct. So it's a byproduct of a copper mine. It's a byproduct of a larger gold mine. It's a byproduct of a lead and zinc mine. And so bringing on a new uh a new large supply of silver, let's say 20 million ounces or more at a specific mine, I mean most of the economics at that mine, it's not going to be silver. Right. >> Exactly. and and that's also very particular and and further exacerbates the shortages. So um you know we like to say that silver is um is supply inelastic to to price meaning um you know this it's you can't apply economics 101 to silver. Economics 101 says uh price goes up uh supply increases to to you know to to um sorry price yes price goes up supply increases to you know meet this uh these these higher potential profits and that helps to kind of balance things out but in silver that's not the case. R response is very slow mining to find the silver mines to permit finance build and then produce them you're looking at easily up to 15 years. So that's the first thing and then as you said very well um that about threequarters of of silver comes from mining other metals. So this is what listeners need to understand. Assume you're um one of these miners who produces silver as a byproduct. Your main product let's say is gold or or copper and you produce a little bit of silver on the side. Well you know silver let's say you know 3 years ago was $20. last year, let's say it was uh 30 and then earlier this year 40 and now 60. Well, you're very happy to accept this higher silver price. But are you going to even try to respond? What you're thinking is, um, this is a small portion of my revenue. Maybe it's 10% of my revenue. So, I'm really happy to accept this higher price for my silver, but you know, they may be thinking, how long will it stay up? Uh, how what is my ability to even try to ramp up my production? And if I ramp up my production, it's not just silver production, it's everything else along with it. So, um, ramping up mines is also not an obvious thing. You have to have the the additional um ore in the deposit. you have to get permits to allow for a larger uh processing facilities. You have to finance all of that. Um so again, even if you want to, your response is very slow. So that's why, you know, um with only about a quarter of all the silver coming from primary silver mines, the response is very slow. There's a really other interesting aspect that was actually pointed out to me by uh a mining executive a couple of years back. They said, you know, consider this. the silver price goes up and stays up and even if that mining executive is pretty especially how let's put it this way especially if the mining executive is quite confident that this the price will now stay elevated that mining executive might say well you know I I know my deposit pretty well and I know that there are some areas of the deposit that I have access to that have lower grade silver Well, maybe I'm going to try and mine those areas instead because I can now produce perhaps less ounces of silver at a higher price, make the same profits, and you know, I don't I don't care. My my my what I care about is is m, you know, maintaining my profits. I I'm not that, you know, motivated to try and bring necessarily more silver to market. So they may actually look at the lower grade areas of their deposit and and bring >> or the junk ore that stockpiled, right? That that was like uneconomic that was just sitting there. I mean like it's the opposite of high grading. So like during the bare market, a lot of the miners to survive, they had to high-grade. They couldn't the ore that was marginal or uneconomic, they had to just stockpile it and couldn't run it through the mill because they couldn't make money on it. So you're saying the opposite the opposite of high-grading now might be happening. >> Exactly. they may decide to lowgrade their deposits and and make things, you know, it's just sort of upping the ante on on making um supply uh that much more uh scarce. >> Yeah. The the other thing is a lot of these base metal miners, so the some of the base metals are not doing as well as gold and silver, especially like lead and zinc and some of the other ones that are more tied to the economy. So, if you're a base metal miner and you have a bad balance sheet, the economics of your mind are not doing well, all of a sudden your silver your silver byproducts worth a lot more. I could see some of these base model miners now that the net present value of the silver byproduct is worth a lot more. I could see them wanting to cash out and sell that silver byproduct stream to Franco Nevada or we precious metals. So the base metal miner their balance sheet is in in better position. >> Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean these are the kinds of things that take place uh you know they they get pretty sophisticated and you know they they do have to uh maximize the the value of the assets and and cash flows and and ensure that uh their balance sheets are are relatively healthy. So these are all the implications and and and things that they deal with and you're right that that they may look as you say to monetize that stream. It would make it would make good sense, I'm sure, in a lot of cases. >> So, you brought up a couple minutes ago that silver production peaked about 10 years ago. That was around the time that Peru was the top silver miner in the world. I think they were number one. I think they dropped down to number three. It's falling very fast. They used to have by far the most silver production. I think Mexico's number one now, but overall their production is fairly stagnant, too. Do you think we're going to see um a country like Peru allow more mining or do you think like that downtrend I I don't think it's just geology with Peru. I think there's a lot of environmental issues, permitting issues. A a lot of these Latin American countries, Peter, seem to be fairly negative about permitting open pit mines that have silver byproduct. >> Yes. Yes, I would agree. You know, it's not something that we can count on. I I will say there's a ray of hope in the sense that um a couple of examples. There was a an election in Bolivia not long ago. They they clearly went from left to right and um the new president is not sort of completely far right. That that candidate did not win, but he's sort of middle right and um he's been very very pro business. Uh it's been very encouraging. He said that he's going to be much more supportive of mining. And uh so I I'm actually quite bullish on Bolivia for two reasons. That being the first one, and the second reason being for probably about 20 years, um Bolivia has been vastly underexplored. Of all of the Latin American countries, I would say probably that's what the one that suffered the most. and that's been because of the uh you know very very left administrations and that looks like it may have flipped completely. So um that's encouraging in the same way or in many ways similar to what's been happening in Argentina. Um my understanding is that there was actually a big change that took place in Chile very recently. So it looks like uh we're heading in the right direction in a lot of these countries. um that's encouraging, but there is still always of course this this lag of finding um permitting, financing, building, and then finally producing. So I I think that we're going to see mine production pretty much stagnate for several more years. And you know to their credit at the silver institute I think it was in the silver survey of 2020 um 2025 so earlier this year around April they said that they expected that we would have uh ongoing deficits. So, by the way, also interesting for your your listeners to know that the silver market has been in a structural deficit. If you include 2025, and it's by all likeliness going to be another year of deficit to the tune of about 100 million ounces, this will be the fifth consecutive year of of structural deficit. If you add the total deficits of these last 5 years, you're at a full year's mine production. So that's just some perspective. On top of that, the Silver Institute has said that the the next uh the next five years we they expect to see ongoing deficits and that we would likely reach a new um a new record high deficit in those 5 years. So this is going to be um by all accounts a very very tight silver market for for a long time to come. >> And the supply response is going to be very slow for mine supply. I I mean I I've heard anecdotal stories here in the United States that a lot of people in major cities and metro areas were already when there was silver price spikes a couple years ago just over the last 3 to 5 years there was a lot of people selling their silver jewelry selling their their uh antique silver silver cutlery so they were already liquidating it when there was a price spike for um necessity reasons for economic reasons so there was a lot of people you know theorizing Peter that all this uh junk silver that's uh antique or or older jewelry is going to flood the market and that's going to cause a huge amount of supply to hit the market. I think a lot of it has already hit the market over the last 3 to 5 years already. >> Yeah, I mean that's a great point. Yes, I I I would agree. Probably a lot of that has already come to market. And you know the other side of that is that you know it's it's hard to estimate. I've heard all kinds of ranges, but there are probably at least a few billion ounces, maybe up to four or five billion ounces of silver that's held privately in form of jewelry, silverware, and then even the investment bars and coins and all of that. Um, and that the argument was that this silver is available to come back to market. Uh, but you know, I don't think we're in the kind of regular sort of environment where silver runs up and people rush to to sell it off. um if for sure if there is a you know if they they're facing uh a financial squeeze they they can and would bring that to market but I believe a lot of that silver is held by stackers they are looking at this and they're saying heck no I'm not selling my silver at 65 bucks or 70 bucks um >> it's going to have to be yeah it's going to have to be a lot higher before >> I think the weekend's already liquidated cuz I have some friends that were like that held silver for years and they gave up. I mean, they when silver was at like 20 for a while, they told me that they just sold everything. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's See, that's what I find is kind of unfortunate. That's that's what people do when they they lack information and they're impatient. [clears throat] They're not maybe willing to do the research and so on. That's one of the reasons that I that I was compelled to to write that book because I figured I would make it something that was an easy read that gave people um you know a good perspective on on the history the the the you know macro environment we're in the uses of silver and how really things have have have shifted and this this whole thing of um you know so much now going to industry here here's an interesting thought just Maybe uh 5 years ago we were looking at about 500 million ounces. So half of uh the silver supply went to industry. Now we're looking at 670 million ounces going to industrial uses. That leaves you um you know going from say 50% of the annual silver supply available for things other than industrial uh to about 33 or 35% of annual silver being available for things like jewelry, silverware and investment. So you tell me Jason what happens when you're you're >> so so you're saying the industrial end users is almost up to 70% of the annual silver supplies already spoken for like right off the bat. >> Exactly right. Exactly right. So you tell me in this kind of environment when when the they need their silver. This is not sort of optional for them. That's why they're thrifting and they're looking to thrift and so on. But that is not optional. Even if the even if their demand stays at the level that it is now next year and there's no growth in industrial demand, you're still looking at almost 70% now of silver annually going to industrial. They are not going to back off and say I don't need it. What becomes optional in quotes is investment demand. And I put it in quotes because well, you know, sort of sarcastically um people want it more than ever when they see that it's climbing because there there's this FOMO going on thinking I I need to be part of this. And so um what happens when there's you go from say 50% 5 years ago to now only 30 or 35% being available for investment. Well, that's a squeeze if there ever was one. So supply for investment supply is down like 30% then for the for the available cuz the the industrial end users are speaking for more and more of the silver unless they substitute it but we don't see evidence of of that quite yet. Now it sounds like there's a business opportunity for someone who can recycle the silver and the e-waste and old TVs and computers and electronics. Sounds like there's a huge business opportunity for someone who figures out better technology to efficiently extract that silver out of landfills and junkyards and stuff. >> I I agree. I agree. That's that's quite the challenge, but if somebody masters that um they're going to make a whole lot of money. Uh something else I did want to point out too is that if you look at so the silver institute um in their sort of demand versus supply to get uh the final numbers of you know what kind of uh deficit we're looking at. They they exclude uh investment in exchange traded funds. So they keep they keep it as a as a separate line item. Well, what's interesting is that um they back in in April, their forecast was that uh the flow of silver into um invest into uh exchange traded funds was going to be on the order of about 70 million ounces. We're already by November at over 180 million ounces. So, so >> the over 2x increase. So, they only projected 70 million and it's 180 million instead. So, that's over double. Exactly. So if you include and even if you only go by their forecast of 70 the market balance because they they anybody that wants to go and look at this just go to the silver institute's website or or go to Google type in silver silver uh world silver survey 2025 and on page um page nine of the or of the of the document um you'll see that total demand is 148 8 sorry 1,148 million ounces versus supply of of uh a thous sorry a billion so it's a billion30 million ounces versus a bill 148 million ounces the the the shortfall or the forecast shortfall back in April was that we would have a deficit of about um say 117 million ounces. Now, as I say, they do not include the flow of silver into um into the silver ETFs. And their explanation for that is they say, well, you know, it it can it flows out, but it could it flows into the ETFs. It could easily flow back out and and you know, make itself available to market. Well, my argument against that is so is net uh demand for coins and bars and yet they do include that in demand that that the argument is that that I mean my argument is that should be able to flow back as well. Right? So they decide to include coin and bar demand but they don't include uh silver ETF demand. So my point is that if you even with their numbers that now they're they're admitting will be short for the amount of silver they they that will be flowing into silver ETFs in 2025. Um you if you include that, which they do on separately, you would be at a deficit that would be the third largest in the in the past decade. >> Well, even if they pull the silver out of the silver ETFs like SLV, I mean, it's a one-off, right? Because they don't recycle this efficiently. So if they take the silver bars and then they melt it down into smaller usage silver, it's going to be tough to recycle it. So it's basically gone. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. All that to say that um the the uh these deficits are are are high and what we've seen in the response I think in the last sort of couple of weeks and couple of months uh speaks to the fact that the market is finally coming to terms with um that industry has has drained supplies these above ground secondary supplies that were sitting in the futures markets being the COMX the LBMA in London and then the Shanghai and this is a bit of a shell game. Frankly, this is how I see it. You know, uh, metal flows from London to New York because the threat of tariffs and then London is short and then China or Shanghai decides to ship some metal uh, some silver from Shanghai to London to help London because they're so short. Well, there isn't more silver all of a sudden because you decided to move it from one place to the other. It's the same amount of silver. So, you know, it's like you're moving around these shells. whi which shell is the silver underneath and um you know that that the emperor has uh has no clothes that's starting to be uh revealed I think uh as we speak or you get to the futures market scenario where they're having trouble sourcing because they've been moving the silver all around like you said and then someone at one of the exchanges that doesn't have the silver wants actual metal does not want to cash settle at a huge premium let's say it's a central bank I mean I've heard I don't know if you're friends with Eric Young out of Hong Kong or Daario at a Hong Kong area and they've telling me their sources. I mean, they heard that like there's a huge Chinese purchaser for industrial end user, I think jewelry. They want a massive amount of silver. They do not want a cash settle. They want their metal. >> And basically, the exchanges are scrambling around over the last week or so trying to source it and they still can't source it. And then I just heard from from those two guys, both of them just said 24 hours ago, they said there's a huge, I think, central bank or oil player in the United Arab Emirates that wants like a billion ounces billion dollars, excuse me, worth of silver. He wants to put it in a vault. The guy wants to put it in a vault, his sovereign wealth fund or something like that. He want to put a billion dollars worth of silver in a vault and they don't have the silver for that either. >> Oh my goodness. Yeah. I somehow I'm not surprised and and that's is this is you know the kind of scenario that I've been saying that you know um we we've we've seen this happen and frankly it's been um I don't know if this is fair to say but it's in some ways it's been almost orderly the way it's happened so far. um you get a big industrial uh um you know um futures contract holder who who stands for delivery and is told who absolutely actually needs the metal not the cash and is told I'm sorry we can't deliver um you know force measure here we don't have the metal we'll have to you know pay you out in cash instead I think that's when the sparks are going to really fly and then [laughter] we're going to see you know these >> I mean is the end user going to go to a minor are they going to go a refiner. Are they going to say we can't I can't deal with the exchange anymore? You think they're going to start dealing uh with the miners directly or dealing directly with refiners then? >> They've they've actually my my understanding is they've started doing that. I mean I know even of some juniors um Samsung for example is financing a junior uh to the tune of about I think it's $7 million and um and they've said you know we're going to we're ready to buy your offtake. And I was I was at a conference just a couple of weeks ago in Europe and um you know sitting with an explorer that has a very you know very attractive very high-grade project um in Latin America and spent uh several days in Europe going around before before I met him at the conference meeting with um with um refiners and they were telling them uh you know you're going to be bringing us some really nice high-grade concentrate how much do you need and [laughter] to finance your mine. These these refiners are very very profitable and very very cashri and and the money just keeps flowing in and and he said to them he said, "Well, how much do you have in mind?" And they said, "No, no, it doesn't matter. You tell us. You tell us how much you need." >> Okay. So, they want to lock in a supply. Oh, wow. So, in the for our listeners out there, we would have never heard a scenario like this in the past. So now that they have free cash flow, they're looking to make sure that they get reliable supply locked up from sources because it sounds like they don't trust COMX, LBMA, the major exchanges anymore. >> Yeah. Yeah. I that's that's what it's sounding like. Absolutely. >> But if but if you're a junior in Bolivia and you just said Bolivia is opening up. I mean there's a few juniors there. I know Celane had some uh some old silver mines there with a lot of potential, but they weren't investing uh exploration budget into there because of the political situation. Even though there was a lot of hundreds of millions of ounces if not more potential silver at the some of their old mines. I think there's a a giant mountain of silver in there. I think it's called like literally silver mountain or something in [laughter] the old Sero Rico that has produced over a billion ounces. It's considered one of the the single largest uh silver deposits in the world and that goes back in fact I talk about that in the book. It goes back to I think it's the 1600s or so. And in here's an interesting little factoid is that when when the Spanish um you know I guess um not not very responsibly in different ways both environmentally and and towards the the the well back then the natives who who were um who were being forced to mine it for them very uh unsafeely. Um there was so much silver being produced at one point that was being shipped back to to Spain that it was actually inflationary. There was >> Yeah. caused hyperinflation. Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. This is it's a funny thing cuz there was an over supply right of gold and silver from the new world from Latin America and actually caused hyperinflation. It's the one instance where gold and silver actually caused hyperinflation in the money supply cuz when there was more metal then they had to create more paper more paper receipts. Right. >> That's right. We we don't have to worry about that now. But >> yeah, [laughter] definitely not. >> Not not from not from precious metals anyways. >> But Latin America has a long history with silver. What uh Argentina is named after silver? Argentina for for Latin Argentum. What that means? Silver in in uh Spanish. What uh one of the words for money is platin which is silver. So plat silver and also means money besides dero. >> That's right. And in French you've got arjan which is uh argent or argentum. And so there's another example as well. >> Yep. And then you have Bolivia which has literally silver mountains. So there's a number of juniors what in Bolivia now. But you're saying even if like a junior and I'll just name one for the listeners out there. Panta Silver and there's a few others. Even if they were to find let's say a massive deposit, it would take them 7 10 maybe even 15 years you said to get that production online. >> That's right. I mean, you you could have I mean, and I I'm hopeful that you're going to have some uh jurisdictions that are going to be um a lot more conducive and and because if they're being squeezed sort of economically and so on and perhaps even by, you know, here's one example um in Argentina. So there are a couple of even even with the kind of administration, the very far-left administration that they've had for the last, you know, decades. Uh there have always been a couple of provinces that were very um promining despite despite that. And so one of them is um is Salta. So that province has has been been promin have gotten even better. But the interesting thing is it's amazing how you know when the pendulum swings too far one way it starts to swing back and and people kind of get on board. And so I was on a conference call with with uh you know this this mining company and and their geo and um there there's Malay had brought out this thing called RIGI. So that's that's an acronym and it's it's a it's an investment scheme where what they do is they they tell uh you know companies in any industry not just mining that if you've got a big enough project it has to be I think a few hundred million so you know a lot of mining projects will qualify because by the time you build the mine you're looking at a few hundred million um they they they give you all kinds of benefits. So, uh you you're going to pay lower lower taxes, lower royalties. You have um tax uh uh rate assurance for the next sort of 20 or 30 years. They they remove uh forex uh limits. You can you can bring the money out as you wish. Attracting a lot of there have been I think over $10 billion of of uh of applications to this new fund because it's so attractive. BHP is one of them. And I think um they they may actually have been one of the first and biggest ones to to make an application under that under that scheme. Well, in this call I was saying to um to the GEO and they're well you know the neighboring provinces are going to look at you guys and say hey I want a piece of that. Gez you know the economy is not doing that well. Maybe our province should be a little bit more promining. And I think we're going to start to see that attitude spread all over, not just, you know, in in Latin America and in one province next to another within the same country, but we're going to see that in a lot of places. And so, um, >> well, I don't know about Peru cuz I mean, Peru, the last 10 years have been rough cuz Peru was the top silver M. Peru has a ton of silver deposits. They have Kani as a byproduct, Santa Ana, they have a lot of these other potential silver mines. What what um pisses me off, Peter, is uh literally in Argentina, you have the arguably the top worldass silver deposit. You have Lava Dad, I think it's what over 500 million ounces of silver reserves. What is it? 30 million ounces a year projected of silver production. Yeah. And the M's being blocked. It's literally worth in net present value at what $50 silver if we're going to discount this. So, it's worth billions of dollars. And they're not even trying to bring the mine online. >> Exactly. Exactly. Right. And you're right about Peru. that's probably I think going to and we'll see for how long because you know they they may get religion as well when when they see what's happening with neighbors. Um and so we we've seen that as I say we've seen that happen now in Argentina. We've seen it happen in Bolivia. We we're we've seen it happen in Chile and so Peru is important for silver. I'm hopeful that will happen. Um so so there may be in terms of you know say new supply coming to market. It's possible and and we we are at least hearing the right things in sort of the more developed world where where governments are saying you know um [snorts] and it's interesting how they're actually flipping from being very left to being pro uh you know pro business and and being you know more sort of uh supportive of of mining for example which had been for the longest time considered you know this dirty industry. I don't believe that's the case if you're doing it the right way. And they're saying >> there creates investments too. Not only do if you do responsible mining, you're investing into the community. You're investing in infrastructure, electricity, schools, clean water. You know, all these things are in the local community. It's creating jobs, long-term jobs there. So, it it makes a lot of sense to do this. It brings in tax receipts for the government. I mean, you'd think that they would want to, and especially at the current gold and silver prices. I mean, that's billions of dollars uh for gold and silver deposits in Peru, in Chile, in Argentina, Bolivia. I mean I one would think that they would want the billions of dollars coming in and the investments into their communities. >> Exactly. And and I and they do and and I think that we're we are certainly starting to see a positive response from not not not completely and not across the board for sure. But we are starting and and I think there's a couple of reasons for it. Uh economies are not doing all that well. The world's deglobalizing. So there is pressure to to uh you know get supply for resources um either independently so at home or uh from what you know what countries consider to be um reliable partners so to speak you know jurisdictions that they're comfortable dealing with. And so these these supply chain uh issues and restrictions are are really starting to formulate a different kind of world. the deglobalization of sort of and it's not just east west etc but you know very very broadly you could call it that um but um I I think that's making people realize that oh yeah you know what we we are going to have to be a little more open-minded about where our stuff comes from and and encouraging business and frankly you know uh I can tell you I'm I'm in Canada and and uh you know we we joke sometimes that uh you know Trump was um was particular and and uh when it came to tariffs and and he really sort of, you know, stirred the the the the stirred up a bees nest with with that whole action. But at the same time, what he's done is he's gotten um he's gotten a lot of jurisdictions to look inward and say, "Hey, you know what? We we don't know that we can rely on selling to the US like we did anymore." um we have to either look at other markets and we have to look um internally and so that means that we have to be smarter about how uh we can help industry advance and uh you know there's an example in British Columbia which is you know pretty big in mining still had or h has been considered quite left so for example um you know a little bit difficult to to permit and so on they went and fasttracked a whole bunch of projects One of them being a large gold and silver mine that um is uh they put at the very very top of their list when they said they gave I think it was a list of 10 projects um and and a large gold silver mine was put at the very top. So, you know, I I think things are changing. Um but that doesn't mean that um we're going to see silver sort of drop back to 20 or $30 tomorrow. Um there's still going to be these time lags and I think it's going to you know the environment is going to remain very very conducive to uh to high silver. >> Yeah, I agree. I think the supply response could take at least 7 to 10 years. Now there'll be some marginal silver with some of these primary silver miners. They could increase like reinvest into an existing silver mine and maybe increase production a little bit. But all that additional silver byproduct, it's going to take many many years. Any silver discovery that we see in Bolivia or Argentina, I think there's a Vasconia one. what that's on the Argent Argentina Chile border. That's a humongous amount of silver byproduct from London mining, BHP. I mean, that could take years for that to come online um to ramp up to production. That's a massive uh copper mine. >> Exactly. Exactly right. It's it's going to be a very very conducive environment uh as we go forward. >> Well, it's also very frustrating too that you have two worldclass silver mines. What you have the Esco ball mine that Pan-American Silver owns in Guatemala. That's a delay. That may get restarted, but that should have been back online. And then L Navi Dodd which has been that should that was supposed to come online like 2010 or 11. So that thing's been delayed for about 15 years now. >> Those are both very much I would say trophy assets. And if we can get um those things to turn around. I mean that's going to be like a it's going to be a massive shot in the arm for for Pan-American Silver given you know what even just one of them one of those two you know eventually opening up and coming online. And uh I think they're smart. You know, they've been patient. Um the carrying costs are probably pretty minimal and they're right now they're they're in a great environment. They're producing a ton of cash. Um they're and they're being patient with these assets. I think that uh it'll pay off for them over time. >> Yeah. And they just bought mags silver too. So that's another long-term asset that they share with Fresno. So I mean they're diversifying. I think for uh many years, what 7 years, 8 years, they had bought a lot of gold mines and diversified a lot of their revenues away from silver, but now Paname Silver is starting to invest back into silver again. >> Exactly. Exactly. Right. Yep. It's it's very encouraging to see. >> Well, I I highly recommend Peter for for uh his knowledge and expertise on silver. He covers exclusively the silver companies. He knows an enormous amount about the silver market. If my listeners want to check out your work, how do they do so? So, um they can go to uh silverstockinvestor.com. Um that will uh you know explain describe my my newsletter. Um it will link you back to um our portal site which is the goldadvisor.com. So I'm partnered with a guy by the name Jeff Clark. Uh he covers mostly gold as well as copper and uranium, a little bit of silver and then I I cover exclusively silver. So, we both have um newsletters that cover this this industry and um that's that's a great way to to look uh at more of what we do. Um I am active on uh on X, I'm active on LinkedIn and if somebody, you know, wants what I I think is is a reasonably good introduction to um the whole silver uh market, silver space and how to get started and and involved in investing in silver. my book, The Great Silver Bull, um, you know, I think is is a good introduction and a reference guide for for that. >> And your book is available on audiobook, too, on Audible, right? >> That's right. Um um it's available in print from Amazon, audio from Amazon and um and in Kindle as
Peter Krauth: Silver Industrial Demand Taking 70% of Annual Supply, Silver Supply Takes 10-15 Years?
Summary
Jason Burack of Wall St for Main St interviewed returning guest, former investment bank commodities analyst and silver expert, …Transcript
Hi everyone, this is Jason Ber of Wall Street from Main Street. Welcome back for another Wall Street for Main Street podcast interview. We're recording this interview on Thursday, December 11th, 2025. The silver price has skyrocketed a lot over the last uh six or seven months. I remember speaking with my returning guest, I think I think I interviewed him a number of times over the years. If I remember correctly, we first started speaking when the silver was in the low 20s about 18 months ago and no one wanted to talk about it. Was a contrarian value play. I used to get messages all the time. Why are you saying anything nice about silver? It's a dog. It's never going to go up. They're never going to allow it to go up. He was writing the silver stock investor newsletter. He also put out a book on silver, one of the only books on silver. It's comprehensive called The Great Silver Bull. I think about two years ago. Peter Kra, thank you for joining me again. >> Jason, well, thank you for having me back. Um, great intro. [laughter] I appreciate it. >> Yeah, I remember when when you first came on for silver and everyone was like, why are we even talking about silver? It was like one of the most the sentiment levels were so bearish and now here we are what we're over $63 an ounce for silver. It's just gone parabolic in what the last seven or eight months. >> Exactly. and and you know um your point is well taken because if there's ever ever an indicator of you know what kinds of things you should be looking at it's those things that that people are responding like that to because that that tells you that there's almost nobody left to sell and and that's when you want to be buying. I mean, it's not easy and it doesn't mean you have to go all in, but that tends to be the best time. And, you know, um, the last couple of years have have proven that to be the case. So, it's it's exciting times. And, you know, it's obviously a lot less contrarian now. People are sort of falling over themselves to get in. But um I think that uh that said um we are in new territory and and I've heard from some some fantastic uh analysts and and even you know uh investors/traders who are very wellversed in this uh in this area and they said look the moment you get over 50 and you can see that 50 is maintaining itself it becomes a new floor and I and I have said that several times as well that um you're in uncharted waters or uncharted territory so you and quickly run up to, you know, 60, 70, uh, 80. Um, you know, those these kinds of numbers are becoming, um, a lot more, I guess, what you would call realistic and or ac accessible now that we've we've broken through. And a lot of people are really surprised by this. I mean, I'm going to say to be fair, myself to some extent, I am surprised, too. This has run faster than than uh my my uh my expectations were. Yeah, I would say it's a short squeeze now that basically there's a huge there's a short squeeze with the uh whe whether it's on the COMX, the LBMA, the Shanghai gold exchange for delivery of physical silver and there's a lot of people piling on to the long side. But I wanted your to bring you back on for an update on actual supply and demand because um for industrial demand for China and India for solar panels, hasn't the demand been increasing enormously over the last couple years for industrial demand for China and India? Is it mostly solar panels or is there other uses? >> So, there are other uses and we can get into that a little bit, but uh yes, absolutely. You know, I think I've said this before. Solar is the what I call the 800 lb gorilla in the silver sector. Um solar is we're talking about 200 million ounces out of a 1 billion ounce market every year. So, 20% of all the silver goes to that single use being solar panels. Um so you know uh that is definitely a a sector to watch. I've been hearing a little bit in sort of recent weeks that you know the the um the the demand may kind of sort of ease it. Not that it won't continue to grow but it will potentially continue to grow at a little bit slower pace going forward. Part of that because of the silver price, the manufacturers are trying to are really being sort of uh uh aggressive on thrifting, looking for ways that they can they can cut silver out of the panels and keep them as efficient as they are. Um and you know, some of them are looking at other metals, but realistically, I have seen nothing where other metals are real are are uh are a threat because um you know, you've got copper, for example, but it corrods quickly, far less efficient than silver. and uh you know it's it's it's very very difficult to replace that said all of that said the you know the the uh other side of that coin is that um we we are transitioning from the old technology called perk these are all acronyms from perk to um uh topcon which takes about 50% more silver per panel and then uh after topcon the next um technology is HJT and that takes up to 150% % more silver per panel. So already we're seeing um something like 60 or 70% of all of the new solar panels being manufactured uh using the technology Topcon. So uh that I believe is going to compensate for a lot of the potential thrifting and um you've got different areas of the world that are you know uh maybe sort of easing on support. China is one of them and that's definitely one to watch because China is very very big, you know, dominating solar panel manufacturing worldwide. I'm going to say to the tune of at least 80%. So definitely you want to watch what's happening in China. There's been there's been a lot of uh of government policy to support um solar and uh my understanding is that uh you know has or is close to ending. So that may uh sort of take the foot off the gas a little bit in terms of solar panel production in China. But then you've got other areas in the world that are very very supportive uh you know because this is considered a uh low or no carbon um source of energy. >> Yeah. Hasn't India been the leader in silver imports? I think India has been importing even more silver than China has the last two or three years. >> Yes, exactly. It's been it's been off the charts. Part of it is uh in fact for uh for solar um uh installations. Part of it is for other indust industrial uses. They are big uh solar they're sorry big silver consumers when it comes to jewelry and silverware. And um one of the the sort of emerging areas has been um uh exchange traded funds. They've really really taken a liking to uh silver ETFs. They've grown very rapidly. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I know that it's been just absolute tremendous growth terms of the silver that's gone into um you know uh uh sponsored ETFs in India. So um you know gold's obviously gotten very expensive. They're they're very very big gold investors and so they're they're naturally turning to silver because gold has uh has seen it's you know so much of a rise and and a single ounce you know $4,200 let's say versus $60. Um one one's a lot uh more accessible than the other. And I was doing some research on some of the solar panels where people were trying to explain how the uh solar panel uh installers manufacturers were changing how they use silver on the solar panels. Initially, I think like four or five years ago, they would uh take this thick silver uh paste and it was made of a lot of silver and they would spread it on one side of the panel or both sides of the panel. And then they started cuz uh they were looking for new ways to remove the silver, but it wasn't as efficient. And then they decided that they could change the um consistency of the paste and and put in less silver, but they're putting it on both sides of the solar panel. Is that um kind of the layman's terms for how the um solar panels are changing now that they've gone back to pasting with silver kind of like silver mixed into this paste both sides of the solar panel now instead of one side but they're using less silver on each side of the panel but overall if they're making more solar panels what that's more total silver usage by volume. >> Yes, exactly. That that's my understanding of it as well. And something that I wanted to to touch on um when you're talking about um you know how how silver is used uh you know and the the demand of it from uh let's say the industrial sector. Well um some some really interesting numbers when it comes to uh electricity and and solar and and the demand. Now obviously AI has been like the thing for the last sort of year and a half two years. Um but uh if you look at the picks and shovels aspect of AI and of data centers, it really is pretty interesting. I think that it's something like 80% of data centers are located in the US globally. So data center electricity demand growth over the next um uh I believe it's over the next 5 years is expected to grow at 22% per year. AI which you layer on top of the data center uh electricity demand is expected to the electricity uh demand growth for AI is expected to rise by 31% per year over the next 5 years. So, you know, these these tech companies that are building out these big data centers, uh, and and by the way, AI uh an AI query takes 10 times as much electricity or power um as a as a an old old-fashioned now old-fashioned Google search. So, um that that's that's a lot more power uh required. And so, obviously, we know that a lot of these big tech companies are looking to be carbon neutral. they are um they are the first reaction was they we saw this with Microsoft they went to nuclear now there's a couple of reasons for it um nuclear is base load power it's relatively cheap um but you know not everybody's Microsoft Microsoft has billions of dollars tens of billions hundreds of billions they can throw at this um they were able to tap into um uh unused um excess capacity at 3M island so they were able to go in and revive that. I believe that's something that was already sort of permitted and so on. So, they were able to bring that uh online pretty quickly. Um there may have been another couple of examples of of these large uh you know uh mega cap tech companies that have been able to do something like that. Um I started saying that this is about a year and a half ago. I started saying that um solar was going to be a big beneficiary because uh yes um you know the these tech companies are going to nuclear as I say for for base load and so on but um what happens if you know once that let's say excess capacity is used up nuclear takes 15 years to permit and build uh solar takes a year and a half. So it's onetenth the time. So um and there's been a game changer I think on the uh on the solar side and that is batteries. So the latest stats that I have are that this year we're going to install batteries that will match the capacity of 2023. This is for solar specifically will match solar power capacity to the tune of 60% of 2023 installations. So battery uh capacity is catching up very very quickly to solar capacity. Uh battery production is falling in half over the next 5 years the cost to produce the batteries. So the reason I call it a gamecher is because batteries uh if you if you understand you know what that does for solar is essentially makes solar base load power. Obviously the sun does not shine at night. So, if you can store this excess capacity and then switch to battery, draw down on the stored power in the batteries at night, you know, bingo, you've got your uh you've got your base load power uh 24 hours and think about a data center that has the land for example, and many of them do. They've been very forward thinking and they've gone out bought these big tracks of land for for different reasons um mostly again in the US and they build out their data centers and um because they have all this land around the center they can build their own solar farm so they are completely self-sufficient they're not relying on a utility which by the way many of the utilities are saying to uh these data centers uh I'm sorry I don't think I can I can provide all this power that you need from me. So, they're they're having to do this, go out on their own and and uh generate their own power. So, solar is very attractive to them. It it's it's permitted very quickly. It's up and running very quickly and they are completely self-sufficient. So, um to me, it's not a surprise if we see continued uptake and and uh the the solar production and solar installations u surprise the you know, the the forecasters. I think that it's going to remain more robust than than they're uh than they're suggesting. >> So, so far you haven't seen any large industrial end users say because the silver price has gone up over the last 12 months from the low to mid 20s up to 60 that we're going to be delaying or stopping a usage of silver, looking to substitute. You haven't seen any big announcement saying that like they're delaying their silver purchases for 6 months or a year or anything like that? >> I I have not seen anything like that. Not at all. Not at all. I mean it's true like about a year and a half ago which obviously was in a different price environment um one um sort of larger silver producer the mining executive said to me that we've got um our we sell about half our production to China about half our production to the west and um and he said the Chinese buyers are coming to us and saying we will pay two pay you $2 over spot and we will pay you 2 weeks in advance of delivery. we want our silver that badly. So, um I know I have I have, you know, as I say, admittedly that's a while back, but I've I've heard nothing along those lines. The the closest I've heard to that is that they're they're trying to be, you know, a little bit more aggressive on the thrifting side. Um I I don't think that's going to be enough. You know, silver after oil is is the second has has this is has the is the commodity with the second most uses globally. So only oil has more applications than silver. And obviously oil is a much bigger market, but that's irrelevant. It's it's it's how silver is used. And it is really everywhere. I mean, I like to say that you're never more than about a meter or if you're in the US, a yard um away from some silver because it's it's in your um you know, your flat screen uh computer screen, it's in your um your uh smartphone, it's in your keyboard, it's in your microphone. It really is everywhere around you. So it it's you know one one uh big investor said to me lately um he said we call these critical minerals and maybe we can talk about that because it was designated a critical mineral in the US. Um he says we call them critical minerals. He says I I call silver um an essential mineral. You you pretty much um would have one heck of a time trying to function without it these days. It's everywhere. It really is. And the quantities are are often so small that the manufacturer will either absorb at least for a while, you know, perhaps the the higher cost because it's not that significant or if they decide to pass it on, um it's also not that significant. So it they don't have to raise their price that much. The small quantities, Peter, also make it extremely difficult to recycle because if silver is in tiny amounts in like electronics and electric vehicles and contact switches, what in cars, regular internal combustion engine cars in the electronics inside the car, I mean, it's just extremely difficult to recycle it. You need silver in the triple digits or higher and it for for it to stay there to even think about pulling out these tiny amounts of silver out of junkyards or landfills. >> Absolutely right. Yes. Exactly. that and that exacerbates you know uh the whole situation because your um your recycling is so just very quickly you know the silver market is about a billion ounces a year. We're talking about about 830 35 million ounces come from mining and about uh 190 or so million ounces. So about say 15 or 17% comes from uh recycling. And we're not expecting any kind of meaningful uh you know growth in in either of those by the way. So mine production peaked 10 years ago u 2016 900 million ounces. We've not been able to get meaningfully over about 830 or 835 million ounces ever since then. So mine supply has been essentially falling on balance and uh recycling has gone up a little bit uh but demand has grown and that's why we've seen these these inventories get drawn down so much. It's really um it's really you know the the the writing was on the wall if you were willing to to look at it and read it two or three years ago when I started talking about this. Um but but now the market's coming to terms with it. Well, when you were first coming on the show and silver was hated and it was contrarian. I mean, it was barely the price, the paper price of silver, the spot price was barely at the cost of production. I mean, a lot of these silver miners that we're talking about, first majestic silver, Pan-American, some of the Cordelane, some of the higher cost, heckla, some of the higher cost silver producers, they were struggling to make any type of profit and free cash flow margin. That's why they had to go and buy gold mines. >> Exactly. Exactly right. And interestingly enough, um you know, the ones that have the um the the narrowest margins or the tightest margins, uh when these prices jump like this, they get sort of the biggest boost because every sort of additional dollar in silver proportionally is a bigger percentage gain in profits. So then they they tend to have the biggest leverage and they can just absolutely soar and that's what we've seen uh pretty much most of this year. So I want to ask about the supply response. So I think what the average listener doesn't understand is that the majority of annual silver supply is a byproduct. So it's a byproduct of a copper mine. It's a byproduct of a larger gold mine. It's a byproduct of a lead and zinc mine. And so bringing on a new uh a new large supply of silver, let's say 20 million ounces or more at a specific mine, I mean most of the economics at that mine, it's not going to be silver. Right. >> Exactly. and and that's also very particular and and further exacerbates the shortages. So um you know we like to say that silver is um is supply inelastic to to price meaning um you know this it's you can't apply economics 101 to silver. Economics 101 says uh price goes up uh supply increases to to you know to to um sorry price yes price goes up supply increases to you know meet this uh these these higher potential profits and that helps to kind of balance things out but in silver that's not the case. R response is very slow mining to find the silver mines to permit finance build and then produce them you're looking at easily up to 15 years. So that's the first thing and then as you said very well um that about threequarters of of silver comes from mining other metals. So this is what listeners need to understand. Assume you're um one of these miners who produces silver as a byproduct. Your main product let's say is gold or or copper and you produce a little bit of silver on the side. Well you know silver let's say you know 3 years ago was $20. last year, let's say it was uh 30 and then earlier this year 40 and now 60. Well, you're very happy to accept this higher silver price. But are you going to even try to respond? What you're thinking is, um, this is a small portion of my revenue. Maybe it's 10% of my revenue. So, I'm really happy to accept this higher price for my silver, but you know, they may be thinking, how long will it stay up? Uh, how what is my ability to even try to ramp up my production? And if I ramp up my production, it's not just silver production, it's everything else along with it. So, um, ramping up mines is also not an obvious thing. You have to have the the additional um ore in the deposit. you have to get permits to allow for a larger uh processing facilities. You have to finance all of that. Um so again, even if you want to, your response is very slow. So that's why, you know, um with only about a quarter of all the silver coming from primary silver mines, the response is very slow. There's a really other interesting aspect that was actually pointed out to me by uh a mining executive a couple of years back. They said, you know, consider this. the silver price goes up and stays up and even if that mining executive is pretty especially how let's put it this way especially if the mining executive is quite confident that this the price will now stay elevated that mining executive might say well you know I I know my deposit pretty well and I know that there are some areas of the deposit that I have access to that have lower grade silver Well, maybe I'm going to try and mine those areas instead because I can now produce perhaps less ounces of silver at a higher price, make the same profits, and you know, I don't I don't care. My my my what I care about is is m, you know, maintaining my profits. I I'm not that, you know, motivated to try and bring necessarily more silver to market. So they may actually look at the lower grade areas of their deposit and and bring >> or the junk ore that stockpiled, right? That that was like uneconomic that was just sitting there. I mean like it's the opposite of high grading. So like during the bare market, a lot of the miners to survive, they had to high-grade. They couldn't the ore that was marginal or uneconomic, they had to just stockpile it and couldn't run it through the mill because they couldn't make money on it. So you're saying the opposite the opposite of high-grading now might be happening. >> Exactly. they may decide to lowgrade their deposits and and make things, you know, it's just sort of upping the ante on on making um supply uh that much more uh scarce. >> Yeah. The the other thing is a lot of these base metal miners, so the some of the base metals are not doing as well as gold and silver, especially like lead and zinc and some of the other ones that are more tied to the economy. So, if you're a base metal miner and you have a bad balance sheet, the economics of your mind are not doing well, all of a sudden your silver your silver byproducts worth a lot more. I could see some of these base model miners now that the net present value of the silver byproduct is worth a lot more. I could see them wanting to cash out and sell that silver byproduct stream to Franco Nevada or we precious metals. So the base metal miner their balance sheet is in in better position. >> Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I mean these are the kinds of things that take place uh you know they they get pretty sophisticated and you know they they do have to uh maximize the the value of the assets and and cash flows and and ensure that uh their balance sheets are are relatively healthy. So these are all the implications and and and things that they deal with and you're right that that they may look as you say to monetize that stream. It would make it would make good sense, I'm sure, in a lot of cases. >> So, you brought up a couple minutes ago that silver production peaked about 10 years ago. That was around the time that Peru was the top silver miner in the world. I think they were number one. I think they dropped down to number three. It's falling very fast. They used to have by far the most silver production. I think Mexico's number one now, but overall their production is fairly stagnant, too. Do you think we're going to see um a country like Peru allow more mining or do you think like that downtrend I I don't think it's just geology with Peru. I think there's a lot of environmental issues, permitting issues. A a lot of these Latin American countries, Peter, seem to be fairly negative about permitting open pit mines that have silver byproduct. >> Yes. Yes, I would agree. You know, it's not something that we can count on. I I will say there's a ray of hope in the sense that um a couple of examples. There was a an election in Bolivia not long ago. They they clearly went from left to right and um the new president is not sort of completely far right. That that candidate did not win, but he's sort of middle right and um he's been very very pro business. Uh it's been very encouraging. He said that he's going to be much more supportive of mining. And uh so I I'm actually quite bullish on Bolivia for two reasons. That being the first one, and the second reason being for probably about 20 years, um Bolivia has been vastly underexplored. Of all of the Latin American countries, I would say probably that's what the one that suffered the most. and that's been because of the uh you know very very left administrations and that looks like it may have flipped completely. So um that's encouraging in the same way or in many ways similar to what's been happening in Argentina. Um my understanding is that there was actually a big change that took place in Chile very recently. So it looks like uh we're heading in the right direction in a lot of these countries. um that's encouraging, but there is still always of course this this lag of finding um permitting, financing, building, and then finally producing. So I I think that we're going to see mine production pretty much stagnate for several more years. And you know to their credit at the silver institute I think it was in the silver survey of 2020 um 2025 so earlier this year around April they said that they expected that we would have uh ongoing deficits. So, by the way, also interesting for your your listeners to know that the silver market has been in a structural deficit. If you include 2025, and it's by all likeliness going to be another year of deficit to the tune of about 100 million ounces, this will be the fifth consecutive year of of structural deficit. If you add the total deficits of these last 5 years, you're at a full year's mine production. So that's just some perspective. On top of that, the Silver Institute has said that the the next uh the next five years we they expect to see ongoing deficits and that we would likely reach a new um a new record high deficit in those 5 years. So this is going to be um by all accounts a very very tight silver market for for a long time to come. >> And the supply response is going to be very slow for mine supply. I I mean I I've heard anecdotal stories here in the United States that a lot of people in major cities and metro areas were already when there was silver price spikes a couple years ago just over the last 3 to 5 years there was a lot of people selling their silver jewelry selling their their uh antique silver silver cutlery so they were already liquidating it when there was a price spike for um necessity reasons for economic reasons so there was a lot of people you know theorizing Peter that all this uh junk silver that's uh antique or or older jewelry is going to flood the market and that's going to cause a huge amount of supply to hit the market. I think a lot of it has already hit the market over the last 3 to 5 years already. >> Yeah, I mean that's a great point. Yes, I I I would agree. Probably a lot of that has already come to market. And you know the other side of that is that you know it's it's hard to estimate. I've heard all kinds of ranges, but there are probably at least a few billion ounces, maybe up to four or five billion ounces of silver that's held privately in form of jewelry, silverware, and then even the investment bars and coins and all of that. Um, and that the argument was that this silver is available to come back to market. Uh, but you know, I don't think we're in the kind of regular sort of environment where silver runs up and people rush to to sell it off. um if for sure if there is a you know if they they're facing uh a financial squeeze they they can and would bring that to market but I believe a lot of that silver is held by stackers they are looking at this and they're saying heck no I'm not selling my silver at 65 bucks or 70 bucks um >> it's going to have to be yeah it's going to have to be a lot higher before >> I think the weekend's already liquidated cuz I have some friends that were like that held silver for years and they gave up. I mean, they when silver was at like 20 for a while, they told me that they just sold everything. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's See, that's what I find is kind of unfortunate. That's that's what people do when they they lack information and they're impatient. [clears throat] They're not maybe willing to do the research and so on. That's one of the reasons that I that I was compelled to to write that book because I figured I would make it something that was an easy read that gave people um you know a good perspective on on the history the the the you know macro environment we're in the uses of silver and how really things have have have shifted and this this whole thing of um you know so much now going to industry here here's an interesting thought just Maybe uh 5 years ago we were looking at about 500 million ounces. So half of uh the silver supply went to industry. Now we're looking at 670 million ounces going to industrial uses. That leaves you um you know going from say 50% of the annual silver supply available for things other than industrial uh to about 33 or 35% of annual silver being available for things like jewelry, silverware and investment. So you tell me Jason what happens when you're you're >> so so you're saying the industrial end users is almost up to 70% of the annual silver supplies already spoken for like right off the bat. >> Exactly right. Exactly right. So you tell me in this kind of environment when when the they need their silver. This is not sort of optional for them. That's why they're thrifting and they're looking to thrift and so on. But that is not optional. Even if the even if their demand stays at the level that it is now next year and there's no growth in industrial demand, you're still looking at almost 70% now of silver annually going to industrial. They are not going to back off and say I don't need it. What becomes optional in quotes is investment demand. And I put it in quotes because well, you know, sort of sarcastically um people want it more than ever when they see that it's climbing because there there's this FOMO going on thinking I I need to be part of this. And so um what happens when there's you go from say 50% 5 years ago to now only 30 or 35% being available for investment. Well, that's a squeeze if there ever was one. So supply for investment supply is down like 30% then for the for the available cuz the the industrial end users are speaking for more and more of the silver unless they substitute it but we don't see evidence of of that quite yet. Now it sounds like there's a business opportunity for someone who can recycle the silver and the e-waste and old TVs and computers and electronics. Sounds like there's a huge business opportunity for someone who figures out better technology to efficiently extract that silver out of landfills and junkyards and stuff. >> I I agree. I agree. That's that's quite the challenge, but if somebody masters that um they're going to make a whole lot of money. Uh something else I did want to point out too is that if you look at so the silver institute um in their sort of demand versus supply to get uh the final numbers of you know what kind of uh deficit we're looking at. They they exclude uh investment in exchange traded funds. So they keep they keep it as a as a separate line item. Well, what's interesting is that um they back in in April, their forecast was that uh the flow of silver into um invest into uh exchange traded funds was going to be on the order of about 70 million ounces. We're already by November at over 180 million ounces. So, so >> the over 2x increase. So, they only projected 70 million and it's 180 million instead. So, that's over double. Exactly. So if you include and even if you only go by their forecast of 70 the market balance because they they anybody that wants to go and look at this just go to the silver institute's website or or go to Google type in silver silver uh world silver survey 2025 and on page um page nine of the or of the of the document um you'll see that total demand is 148 8 sorry 1,148 million ounces versus supply of of uh a thous sorry a billion so it's a billion30 million ounces versus a bill 148 million ounces the the the shortfall or the forecast shortfall back in April was that we would have a deficit of about um say 117 million ounces. Now, as I say, they do not include the flow of silver into um into the silver ETFs. And their explanation for that is they say, well, you know, it it can it flows out, but it could it flows into the ETFs. It could easily flow back out and and you know, make itself available to market. Well, my argument against that is so is net uh demand for coins and bars and yet they do include that in demand that that the argument is that that I mean my argument is that should be able to flow back as well. Right? So they decide to include coin and bar demand but they don't include uh silver ETF demand. So my point is that if you even with their numbers that now they're they're admitting will be short for the amount of silver they they that will be flowing into silver ETFs in 2025. Um you if you include that, which they do on separately, you would be at a deficit that would be the third largest in the in the past decade. >> Well, even if they pull the silver out of the silver ETFs like SLV, I mean, it's a one-off, right? Because they don't recycle this efficiently. So if they take the silver bars and then they melt it down into smaller usage silver, it's going to be tough to recycle it. So it's basically gone. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. All that to say that um the the uh these deficits are are are high and what we've seen in the response I think in the last sort of couple of weeks and couple of months uh speaks to the fact that the market is finally coming to terms with um that industry has has drained supplies these above ground secondary supplies that were sitting in the futures markets being the COMX the LBMA in London and then the Shanghai and this is a bit of a shell game. Frankly, this is how I see it. You know, uh, metal flows from London to New York because the threat of tariffs and then London is short and then China or Shanghai decides to ship some metal uh, some silver from Shanghai to London to help London because they're so short. Well, there isn't more silver all of a sudden because you decided to move it from one place to the other. It's the same amount of silver. So, you know, it's like you're moving around these shells. whi which shell is the silver underneath and um you know that that the emperor has uh has no clothes that's starting to be uh revealed I think uh as we speak or you get to the futures market scenario where they're having trouble sourcing because they've been moving the silver all around like you said and then someone at one of the exchanges that doesn't have the silver wants actual metal does not want to cash settle at a huge premium let's say it's a central bank I mean I've heard I don't know if you're friends with Eric Young out of Hong Kong or Daario at a Hong Kong area and they've telling me their sources. I mean, they heard that like there's a huge Chinese purchaser for industrial end user, I think jewelry. They want a massive amount of silver. They do not want a cash settle. They want their metal. >> And basically, the exchanges are scrambling around over the last week or so trying to source it and they still can't source it. And then I just heard from from those two guys, both of them just said 24 hours ago, they said there's a huge, I think, central bank or oil player in the United Arab Emirates that wants like a billion ounces billion dollars, excuse me, worth of silver. He wants to put it in a vault. The guy wants to put it in a vault, his sovereign wealth fund or something like that. He want to put a billion dollars worth of silver in a vault and they don't have the silver for that either. >> Oh my goodness. Yeah. I somehow I'm not surprised and and that's is this is you know the kind of scenario that I've been saying that you know um we we've we've seen this happen and frankly it's been um I don't know if this is fair to say but it's in some ways it's been almost orderly the way it's happened so far. um you get a big industrial uh um you know um futures contract holder who who stands for delivery and is told who absolutely actually needs the metal not the cash and is told I'm sorry we can't deliver um you know force measure here we don't have the metal we'll have to you know pay you out in cash instead I think that's when the sparks are going to really fly and then [laughter] we're going to see you know these >> I mean is the end user going to go to a minor are they going to go a refiner. Are they going to say we can't I can't deal with the exchange anymore? You think they're going to start dealing uh with the miners directly or dealing directly with refiners then? >> They've they've actually my my understanding is they've started doing that. I mean I know even of some juniors um Samsung for example is financing a junior uh to the tune of about I think it's $7 million and um and they've said you know we're going to we're ready to buy your offtake. And I was I was at a conference just a couple of weeks ago in Europe and um you know sitting with an explorer that has a very you know very attractive very high-grade project um in Latin America and spent uh several days in Europe going around before before I met him at the conference meeting with um with um refiners and they were telling them uh you know you're going to be bringing us some really nice high-grade concentrate how much do you need and [laughter] to finance your mine. These these refiners are very very profitable and very very cashri and and the money just keeps flowing in and and he said to them he said, "Well, how much do you have in mind?" And they said, "No, no, it doesn't matter. You tell us. You tell us how much you need." >> Okay. So, they want to lock in a supply. Oh, wow. So, in the for our listeners out there, we would have never heard a scenario like this in the past. So now that they have free cash flow, they're looking to make sure that they get reliable supply locked up from sources because it sounds like they don't trust COMX, LBMA, the major exchanges anymore. >> Yeah. Yeah. I that's that's what it's sounding like. Absolutely. >> But if but if you're a junior in Bolivia and you just said Bolivia is opening up. I mean there's a few juniors there. I know Celane had some uh some old silver mines there with a lot of potential, but they weren't investing uh exploration budget into there because of the political situation. Even though there was a lot of hundreds of millions of ounces if not more potential silver at the some of their old mines. I think there's a a giant mountain of silver in there. I think it's called like literally silver mountain or something in [laughter] the old Sero Rico that has produced over a billion ounces. It's considered one of the the single largest uh silver deposits in the world and that goes back in fact I talk about that in the book. It goes back to I think it's the 1600s or so. And in here's an interesting little factoid is that when when the Spanish um you know I guess um not not very responsibly in different ways both environmentally and and towards the the the well back then the natives who who were um who were being forced to mine it for them very uh unsafeely. Um there was so much silver being produced at one point that was being shipped back to to Spain that it was actually inflationary. There was >> Yeah. caused hyperinflation. Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. This is it's a funny thing cuz there was an over supply right of gold and silver from the new world from Latin America and actually caused hyperinflation. It's the one instance where gold and silver actually caused hyperinflation in the money supply cuz when there was more metal then they had to create more paper more paper receipts. Right. >> That's right. We we don't have to worry about that now. But >> yeah, [laughter] definitely not. >> Not not from not from precious metals anyways. >> But Latin America has a long history with silver. What uh Argentina is named after silver? Argentina for for Latin Argentum. What that means? Silver in in uh Spanish. What uh one of the words for money is platin which is silver. So plat silver and also means money besides dero. >> That's right. And in French you've got arjan which is uh argent or argentum. And so there's another example as well. >> Yep. And then you have Bolivia which has literally silver mountains. So there's a number of juniors what in Bolivia now. But you're saying even if like a junior and I'll just name one for the listeners out there. Panta Silver and there's a few others. Even if they were to find let's say a massive deposit, it would take them 7 10 maybe even 15 years you said to get that production online. >> That's right. I mean, you you could have I mean, and I I'm hopeful that you're going to have some uh jurisdictions that are going to be um a lot more conducive and and because if they're being squeezed sort of economically and so on and perhaps even by, you know, here's one example um in Argentina. So there are a couple of even even with the kind of administration, the very far-left administration that they've had for the last, you know, decades. Uh there have always been a couple of provinces that were very um promining despite despite that. And so one of them is um is Salta. So that province has has been been promin have gotten even better. But the interesting thing is it's amazing how you know when the pendulum swings too far one way it starts to swing back and and people kind of get on board. And so I was on a conference call with with uh you know this this mining company and and their geo and um there there's Malay had brought out this thing called RIGI. So that's that's an acronym and it's it's a it's an investment scheme where what they do is they they tell uh you know companies in any industry not just mining that if you've got a big enough project it has to be I think a few hundred million so you know a lot of mining projects will qualify because by the time you build the mine you're looking at a few hundred million um they they they give you all kinds of benefits. So, uh you you're going to pay lower lower taxes, lower royalties. You have um tax uh uh rate assurance for the next sort of 20 or 30 years. They they remove uh forex uh limits. You can you can bring the money out as you wish. Attracting a lot of there have been I think over $10 billion of of uh of applications to this new fund because it's so attractive. BHP is one of them. And I think um they they may actually have been one of the first and biggest ones to to make an application under that under that scheme. Well, in this call I was saying to um to the GEO and they're well you know the neighboring provinces are going to look at you guys and say hey I want a piece of that. Gez you know the economy is not doing that well. Maybe our province should be a little bit more promining. And I think we're going to start to see that attitude spread all over, not just, you know, in in Latin America and in one province next to another within the same country, but we're going to see that in a lot of places. And so, um, >> well, I don't know about Peru cuz I mean, Peru, the last 10 years have been rough cuz Peru was the top silver M. Peru has a ton of silver deposits. They have Kani as a byproduct, Santa Ana, they have a lot of these other potential silver mines. What what um pisses me off, Peter, is uh literally in Argentina, you have the arguably the top worldass silver deposit. You have Lava Dad, I think it's what over 500 million ounces of silver reserves. What is it? 30 million ounces a year projected of silver production. Yeah. And the M's being blocked. It's literally worth in net present value at what $50 silver if we're going to discount this. So, it's worth billions of dollars. And they're not even trying to bring the mine online. >> Exactly. Exactly. Right. And you're right about Peru. that's probably I think going to and we'll see for how long because you know they they may get religion as well when when they see what's happening with neighbors. Um and so we we've seen that as I say we've seen that happen now in Argentina. We've seen it happen in Bolivia. We we're we've seen it happen in Chile and so Peru is important for silver. I'm hopeful that will happen. Um so so there may be in terms of you know say new supply coming to market. It's possible and and we we are at least hearing the right things in sort of the more developed world where where governments are saying you know um [snorts] and it's interesting how they're actually flipping from being very left to being pro uh you know pro business and and being you know more sort of uh supportive of of mining for example which had been for the longest time considered you know this dirty industry. I don't believe that's the case if you're doing it the right way. And they're saying >> there creates investments too. Not only do if you do responsible mining, you're investing into the community. You're investing in infrastructure, electricity, schools, clean water. You know, all these things are in the local community. It's creating jobs, long-term jobs there. So, it it makes a lot of sense to do this. It brings in tax receipts for the government. I mean, you'd think that they would want to, and especially at the current gold and silver prices. I mean, that's billions of dollars uh for gold and silver deposits in Peru, in Chile, in Argentina, Bolivia. I mean I one would think that they would want the billions of dollars coming in and the investments into their communities. >> Exactly. And and I and they do and and I think that we're we are certainly starting to see a positive response from not not not completely and not across the board for sure. But we are starting and and I think there's a couple of reasons for it. Uh economies are not doing all that well. The world's deglobalizing. So there is pressure to to uh you know get supply for resources um either independently so at home or uh from what you know what countries consider to be um reliable partners so to speak you know jurisdictions that they're comfortable dealing with. And so these these supply chain uh issues and restrictions are are really starting to formulate a different kind of world. the deglobalization of sort of and it's not just east west etc but you know very very broadly you could call it that um but um I I think that's making people realize that oh yeah you know what we we are going to have to be a little more open-minded about where our stuff comes from and and encouraging business and frankly you know uh I can tell you I'm I'm in Canada and and uh you know we we joke sometimes that uh you know Trump was um was particular and and uh when it came to tariffs and and he really sort of, you know, stirred the the the the stirred up a bees nest with with that whole action. But at the same time, what he's done is he's gotten um he's gotten a lot of jurisdictions to look inward and say, "Hey, you know what? We we don't know that we can rely on selling to the US like we did anymore." um we have to either look at other markets and we have to look um internally and so that means that we have to be smarter about how uh we can help industry advance and uh you know there's an example in British Columbia which is you know pretty big in mining still had or h has been considered quite left so for example um you know a little bit difficult to to permit and so on they went and fasttracked a whole bunch of projects One of them being a large gold and silver mine that um is uh they put at the very very top of their list when they said they gave I think it was a list of 10 projects um and and a large gold silver mine was put at the very top. So, you know, I I think things are changing. Um but that doesn't mean that um we're going to see silver sort of drop back to 20 or $30 tomorrow. Um there's still going to be these time lags and I think it's going to you know the environment is going to remain very very conducive to uh to high silver. >> Yeah, I agree. I think the supply response could take at least 7 to 10 years. Now there'll be some marginal silver with some of these primary silver miners. They could increase like reinvest into an existing silver mine and maybe increase production a little bit. But all that additional silver byproduct, it's going to take many many years. Any silver discovery that we see in Bolivia or Argentina, I think there's a Vasconia one. what that's on the Argent Argentina Chile border. That's a humongous amount of silver byproduct from London mining, BHP. I mean, that could take years for that to come online um to ramp up to production. That's a massive uh copper mine. >> Exactly. Exactly right. It's it's going to be a very very conducive environment uh as we go forward. >> Well, it's also very frustrating too that you have two worldclass silver mines. What you have the Esco ball mine that Pan-American Silver owns in Guatemala. That's a delay. That may get restarted, but that should have been back online. And then L Navi Dodd which has been that should that was supposed to come online like 2010 or 11. So that thing's been delayed for about 15 years now. >> Those are both very much I would say trophy assets. And if we can get um those things to turn around. I mean that's going to be like a it's going to be a massive shot in the arm for for Pan-American Silver given you know what even just one of them one of those two you know eventually opening up and coming online. And uh I think they're smart. You know, they've been patient. Um the carrying costs are probably pretty minimal and they're right now they're they're in a great environment. They're producing a ton of cash. Um they're and they're being patient with these assets. I think that uh it'll pay off for them over time. >> Yeah. And they just bought mags silver too. So that's another long-term asset that they share with Fresno. So I mean they're diversifying. I think for uh many years, what 7 years, 8 years, they had bought a lot of gold mines and diversified a lot of their revenues away from silver, but now Paname Silver is starting to invest back into silver again. >> Exactly. Exactly. Right. Yep. It's it's very encouraging to see. >> Well, I I highly recommend Peter for for uh his knowledge and expertise on silver. He covers exclusively the silver companies. He knows an enormous amount about the silver market. If my listeners want to check out your work, how do they do so? So, um they can go to uh silverstockinvestor.com. Um that will uh you know explain describe my my newsletter. Um it will link you back to um our portal site which is the goldadvisor.com. So I'm partnered with a guy by the name Jeff Clark. Uh he covers mostly gold as well as copper and uranium, a little bit of silver and then I I cover exclusively silver. So, we both have um newsletters that cover this this industry and um that's that's a great way to to look uh at more of what we do. Um I am active on uh on X, I'm active on LinkedIn and if somebody, you know, wants what I I think is is a reasonably good introduction to um the whole silver uh market, silver space and how to get started and and involved in investing in silver. my book, The Great Silver Bull, um, you know, I think is is a good introduction and a reference guide for for that. >> And your book is available on audiobook, too, on Audible, right? >> That's right. Um um it's available in print from Amazon, audio from Amazon and um and in Kindle as