26. Silver

"Silver is second only to oil as one of the most widely used commodities, with more than 10,000 applications"

~45-50% of silver is used for jewellery and investment purposes. But rest is used in industrial and photographic uses.
The average solar panel requires 20 grams of silver. Solar demand is ~23% of total silver demand
Electric vehicles use 25-30 grams of silver

Deficit in the market. Increasing demand. Production relatively flat.

Silver & Gold

In the world, around ~3,000 tonnes of gold is mined annually. Silver production in 2024 ~25,600 tonnes around 8.5 times.

The price of Gold is around $3,101 for 1 troy ounce of gold, while silver is at ~$32 per ounce (or 1/100 of gold prices).

(One troy ounce is equivalent to approximately 31.1035 grams. Or 1 million t oz is 31.1 tonnes)

A quick comparison with gold production:

A quick comparison of silver and gold prices:

In terms of investment demand as well, for silver and gold bars, different countries have different preferences:

Annual Market

The total market of Silver $87 billion. Gold was around $382 billion in 2024.

Market Cap (tbd) - all time mined

Silver $1.8 trillion

Gold $21.8 trillion

Silver Purity

Silver purity refers to the amount of pure silver contained within a piece of silver, measured in parts per thousand. A silver item that is 990 purity contains 99% pure silver. The remaining 1% is typically copper or some other alloy metal.

Sterling silver, the standard for silver jewellery and decorations, has a minimum purity of 92.5%. This means sterling silver must contain at least 925 parts pure silver per thousand total parts.

Silver production

Following chart shows the key production geographies of silver. Mexico is the largest with over 22% of global silver production. Only Peru and China are other two countries with over 100million ounce production. All three mine 50% of world's silver over a year.