chadshare - 70% of silver production comes as by-product - mainly from copper mines
due to the fall in copper prices those mines are being high graded - which means they chase the high grade copper and will have less silver - and less new output is coming online
while that remains the case you are likely to see silver production fall rather than rise - because there are very few primary silver finds that are economic enoguh to build a mine on at current silver prices
that will change if silver hits say $us25/oz - but then it will still take 3-4 years for projects to turn into mines
the silver bulls see this combined with a rising gold price as the reason to get long silver over gold