# Grasberg Mine Force Majeure



## AmmoSgt (Apr 13, 2014)

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/19/free...ns-after-force-majeure-on-copper-exports.html

Political problems all but nationalization Indonesia wants 51%. Also significant copper mine problems in Chile the Escondida Mine shut down by strikes .. maybe for a long time 
It's about 10% of the worlds copper supply ..

But here is the thing and why I am posting, there are very very few pure silver mines in the world.. roughly 90% of silver is a by product of copper mining .. pure gold mines are much more common , but gold is often a significant by product of copper mines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasberg_mine#Mine_workings

in this case Grasberg annually produces about 5.5 million ounces of silver and roughly 1.7 million ounces of gold .. Escondida has a similar but a smaller output of gold and silver 139,000 oz gold and 5.9 million ounce silver actually more silver, but a lot less gold

World mine production of silver is around ~870 million ounces per year

here is a demand supply chart that show demand has exceeded supply for sometime http://www.silverinstitute.org/site/supply-demand/

should be good for an upward move in PM prices


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

I think silver is an incredible investment. I think it has huge upside. PM prices are being suppressed to prop up the dollar. Eventually price suppression will end and silver prices will explode upward. I think $300 silver is likely. The hard part is knowing what the dollar will be worth by then.

http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/comex-silver-is-the-most-corrupted-market-in-history/

The silver paper futures open interest is now officially over a 1 billion ozs., most of which represents a naked short position in silver. Never in the history of the markets has any futures market been this extraordinarily disconnected from the amount of underlying physical commodity that is available to deliver against those contract open interest.

*The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Fed, Treasury and big banks are implementing the most extreme market manipulation exercise ever witnessed. *I shudder to think about what catastrophe is coming at us that they know about but we don't - yet.

https://www.goldbroker.com/news/paper-silver-market-250-times-size-physical-silver-market-526

Bloomberg recently published an article on the discussions taking place concerning the establishment of a new « fix » on the silver price. The old « fix » will end on August 15, 2014, bringing potential consequences that I've already analysed.

What is interesting in this Bloomberg article is not so much that discussions have taken place to determine a new way of fixing the price of silver, but rather the information about the scope of the silver market.

*The article states that the size of the global annual silver market is equal to $5 trillion.*

Bloomberg has always been a reliable source with their published data; thus it is interesting to compare the size of the silver market as announced by Bloomberg with the size of the physical silver market.

And this is where things get interesting and really surprising...

In a recent interview, David Morgan confirmed to me that the annual physical silver production is of roughly one billion ounces. With silver trading around $20 currently, this represents a $20 billion market for physical silver.

So the size of the physical silver market is of $20 billion, whereas Bloomberg is mentioning $5 trillion.

How can such a difference be explained?

Well, these $5 trillion represent the entirety of the « paper » silver market, including all « paper » financial products (certificates, options, ETFs etc.) derived from the real physical market and allowing investors to be « exposed » to silver.

This makes for a 250 to 1 ratio between the « paper » market and the physical silver market.

*This would mean that, for every ounce of physical silver, there are 250 ounces of « paper » silver circulating in several financial products. In other words, only one contract or certificate issued out of 250 would be convertible in physical silver.*

The disconnect between physical and « paper », or virtual, markets is considerable.

The financialisation of the silver market is resulting in a leverage of 250 to 1.


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

I remember buying Silver solder back in the 70's for 17$ a troy ounce. Silver solder is almost 100% pure Silver.

Flash forward 40 years and Silver spot price is very close to $17.50 an ounce. No one can tell me that Silver is not under valued. Even though some "experts" are predicting $600 silver, I think the $100 is almost guaranteed and $200-$300 very possible.


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