Silver Price To Surge To Over $100/oz On Global Technological “Gadget” Demand

The silver price is set to surge 800% or “nine fold” in the coming years due to global industrial and technological demand, the “gadget boom” and tight supplies according to a leading mining executive, of First Majestic Silver Corporation.

Silver “supply concerns” could “boost the metal’s price ninefold”, according to the CEO of the best-performing producer of the metal as reported by Bloomberg.

Neumeyer, the E&Y Mining Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 said that a major Japanese electronics maker had approached First Majestic Silver Corp. for the first time last month seeking to lock in future silver stock:

“For an electronics manufacturer to come directly to us — that tells me something is changing in the market,” said Keith Neumeyer, chief executive officer of First Majestic, the top stock in Canada and among its global peers this year. “I think we’ll see three-digit silver,” he said, predicting the metal could surge to $140 an ounce by as early as 2019. 

While long coveted for use in jewelry, silver coins and utensils, silver is increasingly in demand for its industrial applications. Last year, about half of global silver consumption came from such use, including mobile phones, flat-panel TVs, solar panels and alloys and solders, according to data compiled by GFMS for the Washington-based Silver Institute.

“Silver is not a precious metal, it’s a strategic metal,” Neumeyer said in an interview in Vancouver, where the company is based. “Silver is the most electrically conductive material on the planet other than gold, and gold is too expensive to use in circuit boards, solar panels, electric cars. As we electrify the planet, we require more and more silver. There’s no substitute for it.”

Industrial demand is set to increase, driven by rising incomes and growing penetration of technology in populous, developing nations, as well as thanks to new uses being found for silver’s anti-bacterial and reflective properties in everything from hospital paints to Band-Aids to windows.

“Over the next 10 or 20 years, more and more people are going to be using these devices, and silver is a very limited commodity,” Neumeyer said. “There’s just not a lot of it around.”

Use of silver, including investment demand, coin sales and what goes into inventories to settle trades, has outstripped annual supply of the metal in every year since 2000, according to data from GFMS, a research unit of Thomson Reuters Corp. 

“The silver rally is just beginning,” Neumeyer says. “What we’ve seen in the last two months is just the beginning of the next bull market.”

Read and see Bloomberg article and interview here