Every time someone warns about a silver shortage, a lazy analyst parrots the same line: “Miners will just ramp up production.”
Will they?
The numbers say otherwise. Silver mining is not ramping up. It’s stagnating — or worse, declining. New discoveries are rare. Ore grades are falling. Environmental and political pressure is tightening around the industry’s throat. And even if you found a billion-ounce deposit tomorrow, it would take over a decade to bring it online.
So no — the miners won’t save us. In fact, they’re a big part of why silver is about to reprice violently.
Global Silver Production Is Stalling Out
According to the USGS, global mine output in 2024 came in at 822 million ounces, down 2% from 2023 — despite silver trading above $25 for most of the year.
| Year | Global Mine Production (Moz) |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 784 |
| 2021 | 822 |
| 2022 | 843 |
| 2023 | 838 |
| 2024 | 822 |
Source: USGS 2024 Mineral Commodity Report
Why is production falling even as demand surges?
Because silver miners are being squeezed from every direction.
The Ore Grade Collapse
Most silver doesn’t come from primary silver mines — it comes as a byproduct of mining for other metals like lead, zinc, and copper. But even at primary silver operations, grades are collapsing.
| Region | Avg Ore Grade (g/t) in 2010 | 2024 Grade |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico | 220 | 135 |
| Peru | 180 | 116 |
| Chile | 145 | 98 |
[Source: S&P Global, CAMIMEX, company filings]
Lower grades = more rock to process = higher costs = less incentive to expand production.
No New Silver Megaprojects
Ask yourself: when was the last major silver discovery over 100 million ounces?
Answer: over a decade ago.
The pipeline is dry. According to S&P Global’s 2024 exploration report, silver exploration budgets are at 15-year lows. Why?
- ESG constraints
- Permit delays
- Hostile governments
- Low margins vs other metals
- “Green” investors fleeing anything with diesel trucks
This isn’t a temporary problem. This is structural. You can’t mine what you haven’t found.
Silver Wars is dedicated to Safe Guarding the World's Silver Future.
Timeline to Production: Brutal
Even if a major discovery is made in 2025, here’s what the average timeline looks like:
| Phase | Time Required |
|---|---|
| Discovery | 1–3 years |
| Environmental assessment | 2–5 years |
| Permitting & approvals | 3–7 years |
| Construction | 2–4 years |
| Total | 8–15 years |
[Source: Mining.com, MiningWatch, OECD Mineral Development Timelines]
Now tell me — does that sound like a system ready to respond to a supply crunch in 2025?
Miners Are Getting Squeezed
Here’s what the average silver producer is dealing with right now:
- Rising input costs: Fuel, equipment, labor
- Royalties and taxes: Mexico just increased national royalties again
- Regulatory assaults: EU and Canadian miners face new “climate impact” restrictions
- Political risk: Peru, Chile, and Bolivia threatening export controls
This isn’t a business model that scales up under pressure. It folds.
Recycling Won’t Save You
Silver recycling is tapped out. It only provided 180 million ounces of the 2024 supply — most of it from melted jewelry and silverware, not industrial scrap.
As we’ve shown before: solar panels, EVs, missiles, and AI chips all destroy silver. It’s not coming back. So stop waiting for a wave of silver from your old iPhone. It’s not economical to recover.
Schiff’s Take: Miners Are Not Central Banks
Peter Schiff would tell you: you can’t print silver — and you can’t mine it into existence either.
Even with higher prices, most silver miners won’t scale. They’ll cut back, hoard cash, or wait for stability. They’ve been burned too many times by price spikes followed by crashes.
Gold miners have started to consolidate. Silver miners? They’re still in survival mode.
The Monarch
What This Means for Price
This is the setup:
- Silver demand is on track to hit 1.3 billion ounces in 2025
- Mining supply is stuck under 850 million ounces
- The deficit must be filled by shrinking inventories and investor sales
But what happens when investors start buying instead of selling?
That’s when silver goes from commodity to panic asset.
And once the world realizes miners can’t plug the gap, we’ll see a repricing event — not just a rally.
SILVERWARS
Demand is 100x Higher than Supply
There is no cavalry coming from the mining sector. The world is consuming silver at record speed, and the industry tasked with producing it is over-regulated, underfunded, and staring down geological exhaustion.
You want to understand the coming silver crisis?
Don’t look at price charts. Look at shovels. They’re digging less every year — and they’ll never catch up.
Get the real numbers at SilverWars.com. Before the shortage becomes obvious.