iShares Silver Trust (SLV)

[Extreme4Reality]

500 Million Ounces-per-year Mined for UNDER .50 cents-per-ounce

COST to produce this silver is FAR LESS than .50 cents per ounce (but of course they sell it at whatever the current spot rate is no matter how low the spot price falls).

Each year, Copper and Zinc and lead miners produce 500 million ounces of silver as a waste byproduct of their Copper and Zinc mining operations. Tiny amounts of silver are in each monster bucket of copper and zinc ore. The tiny amounts of silver get a free ride through the mining and smelting process. It's not until the very last step that the silver is separated out in order to purify the copper and zinc. Because the silver gets a free ride though 99% of the copper and zinc mining/smelting process, there's only a tiny amount of cost at the tail-end of the refining process that's attributable to the silver. It costs far less than .50 cents per ounce to produce the silver.

Because copper and zinc mines are so very massive, all the tiny amounts of silver per bucket add up over the year to large tonnages of silver.

500 million ounces of byproduct silver are produced each year for under .50 cents per ounce. That's the total amount of silver used by industry world-wide, so this .50 cents per ounce silver can meet 100% of the industrial needs of the world.

Silver prices could crash to $1.00 per ounce and the copper and zinc miners would just keep producing silver (as a byproduct) and selling it at $1.00 per ounce (and making money on it). Their only other option would be to throw the silver away