Silver Demand Skyrocketing, Investigator Tells RIU Sydney

THE CONFERENCE CALLER: “Silver demand is skyrocketing” due to increasing industrial and green energy demand, Investigator Resources (ASX: IVR) managing director Andrew McIlwain told the 2023 RIU Sydney Resources Round-up.

The silver price has risen about 20 per cent over the past year to circa US$26 an ounce or A$38 per ounce.

The silver market was going through structural changes, McIlwain told Resources Roadhouse on the sidelines, referring to recent figures from the Silver Institute showing the market had achieved its second consecutive annual structural deficit.

Demand reached a new high of 1.24 billion ounces in 2022, according to the Institute, while global mine production fell to 822.4 million ounces, creating “possibly the most significant deficit on record”.

Investigator is advancing the Paris project in South Australia, which it describes as the country’s highest-grade undeveloped silver project.

Paris contains 53 million ounces of silver and 98,000 tonnes of lead, which McIlwain said in gold terms equated roughly to a 700,000oz gold project.

Recent results from Paris South included “the highest 1m silver assay” from Investigator’s 2022/23 drilling program, of 1m at 2,410 grams per tonne silver within 25m at 207g/t form 73m.

The company expects to announce a resource update in June and a definitive feasibility study early next year that will include Paris’ lead potential, unlike a 2021 prefeasibility study which focused on silver only.

Investigator has also stepped into the critical minerals space, recently gaining the option to earn into Thor Energy’s Molyhil tungsten and molybdenum project in the Northern Territory.

McIlwain told the conference the molybdenum price had risen substantially from the US$15 a pound used in Molyhil’s 2018 DFS, to about $60/lb.