best silver exposures, page-28

Denpar,

CCU numbers,

Resource (Ag) - 50.6 Moz (71.8 g/t)
Reserve (Ag) - 14.3 Moz (91 g/t)

http://imagesignal.comsec.com.au/asxdata/20110208/pdf/01149172.pdf

Cost of extraction, very competitive at about 8 dollars per ounce!!!

CCU is currently building the plant necessary for first pour in December. Also CCU has done a vast VTEM survey and the results should be available this month. The results of this survey should indicate the best spots for future drilling. Also silver may not be the only targets intercepted. Will be interesting to see if there is anything else in the ground?

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thorburn,

Has silver got the scope for mining production to ramp up quickly? 70 % of silver is mined as a by-product of other metals. Also getting mines up an running quickly at competitive extraction costs is not easy. I also read the other day that the industrial demand for silver is expected to increase year on year 10 % for the next ten years? That would mean that around 50 million more ounces would be required next year from industrial demand alone. CCU plan to do 2.5 million ounces a year, this automatically puts them into the top 15 producers in the world. I tend to think that there will be a silver squeeze eventually. Whether it is during or after this currency crisis remains to be seen? Last year there was an around 200 million ounce shortfall between supply and demand that had to be made up from scrap silver.