① International silver prices are near a ten-year high. As of press time, spot silver has risen nearly 3% per day; ② The CEO of Coldaren Mining said that industrial demand for silver is soaring, driven by electrification applications such as photovoltaics, while supply is flat or even declining.
Financial Services Association, May 9 (Editor: Zhao Hao) Global investment in clean technology soared 70% in 2023, according to a report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Monday (May 6). Among them, the investment in photovoltaic modules reached 80 billion US dollars, more than double that of 2022, accounting for about 40% of the total investment last year.
Given this trend, Sprott, an investment management company focused on the precious metals business, believes that PV panel makers' demand for silver metal is expected to increase by nearly 170% to 273 million ounces by 2030 — about one-fifth of the total demand for silver.
According to information, photovoltaic power generation equipment manufacturing is mainly divided into 5 parts, namely silicon, silicon wafers, photovoltaic cells, photovoltaic modules, and photovoltaic systems. Among them, photovoltaic cells and modules can also be split into photovoltaic glass, EVA, silicon metal, and silver paste circuits.
Silver paste is a viscous paste composed of high-purity metallic silver particles, glass oxides, organic resins, and organic solvents. The reason silver paste is needed is because silver has much higher conductivity than copper and is less valuable than gold.
Mitchell J. Krebs, CEO of the American precious metals mining company Coeur Mining (Coeur Mining), said that industrial demand for silver is soaring, driven by electrification applications such as photovoltaics, while supply is flat or even declining.
Currently, the international silver price is near a ten-year high. As of press time, spot silver rose nearly 3% per day to $28.14 per ounce.
This price may prompt mining companies to increase production, and Colderon Mining also hopes to take advantage of the surge in demand for silver. Krebs revealed that the company recently completed a large-scale expansion of its Nevada mine, which is expected to become the largest source of silver in the US.
London-based Hochschild Mining is also seeking to expand its silver business. The company is expected to obtain permission for a silver project in southern Peru in the second half of this year. The project plans to start production in 2027, and the annual output is expected to reach 50 million ounces.
Hochschild CEO Eduardo Landin said that given potential industrial demand dynamics and existing supply constraints, “we may be seeing the beginning of a silver bull market.”
Benefiting from the sharp rise in silver, the London-listed Hochschild stock price has risen by more than 60% since February of this year, while the US stock Cordelan nearly doubled.
Hamlet Tunyan, CEO of French PV manufacturer ReCom Technologies, said that if silver prices continue to rise, PV manufacturers may be forced to increase product prices in the second half of the year because higher prices may not affect market demand for them.
Sprott market strategist Paul Wong wrote in a recent report that the price of silver is likely to rise similar to that of gold. Previously, gold prices hit record highs for 8 consecutive trading days in April.
He said that although silver is less popular than gold among central banks and other institutions, the correlation between the two has not been broken.