Miners cling to their sizzling silver streams
TORONTO |
(Reuters) - Silver is hot - even for gold miners - and those who held off on selling their silver in advance for quick cash during the global economic downturn are reaping the benefits of soaring prices.
Those who did sell are feeling a bit sheepish, as the spot price for silver - both an industrial and precious metal- has doubled in the last year.
"A lot of our competitors have sold away all their silver stream," Agnico Eagle (AEM.TO) Chief Executive Sean Boyd told the Reuters Mining and Steel Summit. "We've never done it. We like silver."
Advance silver sales - known as silver streams - make sense in times of economic uncertainty. Miners who produce the metal as a byproduct of gold extraction get cash up front to pay development costs, and are guaranteed a price - around $4 an ounce - for silver as it comes out of ground.
But $4 an ounce doesn't seem like much today, with silver hitting a 31-year high over $38 an ounce on Thursday.
