Silver 101: Production By Country

[MNeagle]

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/08/2010 13:42 -0500

Mexico


From the same folks at Money Choices who brought to you: "Gold 101: Who's Got It And Who's Finding It" now comes the 101 lesson in silver: world silver production by country. While his may not come as news to many, the bulk of production comes out of three distinct countries: Peru, Mexico and China. And with the price of the metal having surged more in the past several months than virtually any commodity, suddenly the producers may find themselves with substantial leverage to dictate terms of delivery: think of what happened to Rare Earth Minerals when China blocked exports briefly. With the US not even in the top 5 of world production, could we soon see the formation of yet another cartel, especially when one considers that unlike gold (so the thinking goes), silver also has industrial uses?

http://i52.tinypic.com/519hsw.jpg

zero hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com/article/silver-101-production-country?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedg e+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+fo r+everyone+drops+to+zero%29)

[Serpo]

From the same article,,,,,,

The gold/silver ratio at 48.1 is sustainable as in gold and silver's last bull market in the 1970s, the gold to silver ratio was between 18 and 48 and averaged around 30. In the last 40 years a very significant amount of silver has been consumed in consumer and industrial applications. Gold's consumption is tiny in comparison and this would suggest that the very high gold/silver ratio of the 1990s and up until recently may have been a historical anomaly. Smart money realises this and is positioning accordingly.

Silver remains undervalued vis-a-vis gold and remains a contrarian play with little or no media coverage, scepticism and continued bearish forecasts and few retail investors having any allocation to silver whatsoever.

Most Wall Street banks have been bearish on silver throughout the bull market including last year. They remain so (see News below) with only Bank of America bullish, saying that they expect silver to average $37.5/oz by 2013.

Silver reached a weekly closing nominal high of $49.45/oz briefly in 1980 (see chart above) when just one billionaire family, the Hunt Brothers (one of a handful of billionaires in the 1970s) attempted to corner the silver market causing the price to surge (in conjunction with many investors seeking to hedge themselves from the stagflation of the 1970s). Today there are hundreds of billionaires and hedge funds throughout the world - some of whom may be tempted to squeeze the large concentrated short positions of JP Morgan in particular. JP Morgan is now facing lawsuits and being sued for manipulation and suppression of silver prices. The internet campaign of Max Keiser to 'Buy silver and Crash JP Morgan' has gone viral and is now being picked up in the mainstream media.

From a technical point of view, a close above yesterday’s highs at $30.68/oz could see silver quickly rise to challenge the resistance of the record quarterly nominal high at $32.20 per ounce seen on New Year's Eve 1979

[gunDriller]

so ... what club do i need to join to acquire mineral rights in Peru ?

i had no idea that they had so much silver.