Monday, April 25, 2011

Who Benefits From Silver Rally?

Silver today reached $50 per ounce, touching for the first time the level reached during the brief 1980 super spike, and representing a triping of the price during the latest year. But who benefits from this rally (aside from speculators that holds silver or silver contracts)? Well, you get a pretty good idea from this list of top 10 silver producers:
Ranking 2006
Country
     Production in mio. Oz
1
Peru
                  111,6
2
Mexico
                    96,4
3
China
                    75,4
4
Australia
                    55,6
5
Chile
                    51,5
6
Poland
                    40,4
7
Russia
                    39,6
8
USA
                    36,7
9
Canada
                    31,2
10
Kazakhstan
                    26,1

Note however that given their large silver consumption, China and the USA might not as a whole benefit from higher prices, though the parts of their country where the silver mines are will, similarly to how for example North Dakota benefits from higher oil prices while America as a whole loses.