The stocks to watch in the ASX's emerging silver sector

News.com.au

30-04-2025

Silver prices have failed to keep up with cousin gold in 2025
But massive deficits suggest higher prices will come eventually to boost a new class of emerging producers
Kristie Batten breaks down the key contenders at various stages on the ASX
Often dubbed gold's poor cousin, silver has underperformed this year, leaving market participants scratching their heads.
After being one of the stronger commodity performers in 2024, silver has largely sat on the sidelines as gold has hit record after record.
At its current price of ~US$32.50 an ounce, silver remains well below its 2011 high of US$50/oz.
'It's hard to find a commodity that is still so far off its last high and silver is one that, to us, feels like it needs a big catch-up trade here,' Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia told the Bloor St Virtual Silver Conference on Friday.
'It is incredibly frustrating for us and our investors that silver is just not catching more of a bid.'
The gold to silver ratio, which is the number of silver ounces relative to one ounce of gold, surged to as high as 105 this month and remains at around 100.
'That is about as extreme as I can ever remember seeing it. Even at 80, it's considered extreme, so 100 is really off the charts,' Ciampaglia said.
'It really does reflect one, gold's incredible run, and two, silver just not participating to the same degree.'
The global market for silver exchange-traded funds is about one tenth the size of gold, though Ciampaglia said the difference in inflows so far this year had also shocked him.
By Sprott's numbers, about US$25 billion has flowed into gold ETFs this year, compared to just US$500 million for silver.
'Right now, we need more investors participating in silver to give it a boost,' Ciampaglia said.
More like copper
Ciampaglia described silver as a chameleon or a hybrid metal – both a monetary metal and an industrial metal.
'When the economy is under stress, or there's uncertainty about the economy, you find that silver starts trading more like copper, which is obviously a key industrial metal,' Ciampaglia said.
'Right now, it seems to be more heavily influenced on the industrial side, as opposed to the investment side.'
Sprott Asset Management chief investment officer Maria Smirnova said the industrial demand for silver was surging.
'But what silver doesn't have is the buying from central banks. As you know, gold has been gobbled up in the last three years by central banks, over 1000 tonnes per year,' she said.
'Silver is not being accumulated by central banks, so I think that kind of has hurt silver also.
'I think if people are expecting a slowdown in the economy, specifically because of all the tariffs that are being announced, the perception would be to hurt silver as well, because again, it is used in industry.'
Silver posted its fourth consecutive deficit in 2024 of almost 150 million ounces and is expected to be in deficit again this year.
'This is a market where we only produce 1 billion ounces per year, so that's between 10% and 20% we're short every year now. That's a lot of ounces to find,' Smirnova said.
'Over the last 10 years, we have not increased silver production – in fact, if anything, we have lost about 50Moz per year of production.
'There's been a lack of exploration and development in the silver market, reserve grades and production grades have been declining, so we have to find bigger orebodies and invest more money to develop these deposits.'
ASX silver exposure
There are plenty of Toronto-listed silver producers, but Ciampaglia noted that it could still be difficult to get exposure.
'The challenge is that there aren't many left of the silver miners, even though they might have silver in their company name, they are actually gold miners in disguise, and it's increasingly hard to get pure play silver exposure,' he said.
While producers are scarce, the number of primary silver companies on the ASX has increased in line with the rise in price last year.
The only producer right now is Adriatic Metals (ASX:ADT), which should be declaring commercial production from its Vares operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina any day now after it produced 1.4Moz of silver equivalent in the March quarter and generated positive cashflow.
Soon to join Adriatic is Broken Hill Mines, which has acquired the Rasp mine and Pinnacles project in Broken Hill and is raising up to $20 million via a reverse takeover of Coolabah Metals (ASX:CBH).
While Broken Hill is known for zinc and lead mining, BHM expects more than 50% of its revenue to come from silver, making it the dominant contributor.
Yesterday, Boab Metals (ASX:BML) potentially jumped to the front of the production queue with the $10 million acquisition of Sandfire Resources' (ASX:SFR) DeGrussa plant for use at the Sorby Hills lead-silver project in Western Australia.
The latest capital cost for the project was $264 million, including $136 million for a new plant.
The company is planning to make a final investment decision later this year.
Silver Mines (ASX:SVL) boasts Australia's largest undeveloped silver project, Bowdens in New South Wales, which has reserves of 72Moz.
The company is advancing permitting for the $331 million project, which is expected to produce an average of 4.2Moz of silver per annum at 83 grams per tonne at all-in sustaining costs of less than $23/oz in the first 10 years of a 16.5-year mine life.
Maronan Metals (ASX:MMA) should have a resource update and scoping study out for its namesake lead-silver project in Queensland in the coming months.
Maronan has a resource of 32.1 million tonnes at 6.1% lead and 107g/t silver for 1.96Mt of contained lead and 110.6Moz of silver.
Growing resources
Sun Silver (ASX:SS1) holds the largest silver resource on the ASX of 480Moz AgEq at 68.29g/t AgEq at its Maverick Springs project in Nevada.
Earlier this week, Sun kicked off its 2025 drilling program with the aim of building on the existing resource, as well as providing samples for metallurgical testing.
In Chile, Andean Silver (ASX:ASL) has a high-grade resource of 9.8Mt at 353g/t AgEq for 111Moz of AgEq, as well as US$150 million worth of infrastructure, at its Cerro Bayo project.
The company currently has three drill rigs spinning.
In nearby Argentina, Unico Silver (ASX:USL) has a resource of 16.47Mt at 172g/t AgEq for 91.3Moz AgEq at its Cerro Leon project, as well as a non-JORC historical resource of 16.7Mt at 136g/t AgEq for 73.4Moz AgEq at the Joaquin project.
The first drilling program at Joaquin is underway.
To the north in Mexico, Mithril Silver and Gold (ASX:MTH) has two rigs working at the Copalquin project in Mexico.
The company has the aim of doubling the existing resource of 2.4Mt at 4.8g/t gold and 141g/t silver for 373,000oz of gold and 10.9Moz silver in an update to be released later this year.
Argent Minerals (ASX:ARD) completed a drilling program at its Kempfield project in NSW during the March quarter, extending mineralisation outside the resource.
Kempfield has a resource of 63.7Mt at 69.75 g/t AgEq for 142.8Moz of AgEq.
Earlier stage options
Shares in Errawarra Resources (ASX:ERW) spiked in late March when it announced the acquisition of 70% of the Elizabeth Hill silver project and surrounding tenements in the Pilbara region of WA.
While Elizabeth Hill doesn't have a resource, it produced 1.2Moz of silver at a head grade of 2194g/t silver in just one year, though it closed in 2000 due to a weak silver price.
Errawarra, which is planning to change its name to West Coast Silver, raised $3 million and has already kicked off field work at Elizabeth Hill.
The work underway will pave the way for the first drilling program, which is expected to begin later this quarter.
In Queensland, Iltani Resources doesn't yet have a resource for its Orient silver-indium project, but it's currently working towards that goal.
The company has announced an exploration target of 99-135Mt at 61-73g/t AgEq, including a high-grade core of 32-42Mt at 110-124g/t AgEq.
Iltani recently resumed drilling at Orient following the end of the wet season.