Nearly 300 Million Ounces of Physical Silver Have Been Drained from the Market
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Arsenio Toledo
Precious metals industry expert Andy Schectman warns that the market is being drained of its physical silver inventories, with around 285 million ounces of silver disappearing in recent months.
In the NYSE, physical inventories for SLV fell by 45.6 million ounces in just four weeks on July 26. The next day, reported inventories for sale fell to 57.8 Moz, and the overall registered silver inventories in the Comex fell by 3%. The next day, Comex reported another drop in registered inventories to 55.7 Moz.
This massive drop in silver inventories is happening all over the world. In the Shanghai Stock Exchange, silver inventory reached a peak in January 2021 at 3,091 tons (109 Moz). On July 27, inventory had fallen to just 141 tons (49 Moz).
In London, the LBMA reports that the quantity of silver held has been dropping for seven straight months.
Data from the LBMA shows that it held 997.4 Moz of silver in June 2022. In June 2021, LBMA silver inventories stood at 1.18 billion ounces, which means that in just 12 months 182.7 Moz of silver has been drained from the vaults.
Ronan Manly, a precious metals analyst, says that silver inventories have dropped since early December 2021 because of “a concerted effort by the bullion banks to suppress the silver price.”
Silver supply is only set to reach 32,000 tons in 2022, against 34,000 tons of demand. Manly maintains that, as witnessed in early 2021, the bullion banking cartel is terrified of the silver-backed ETFs gobbling up greater percentages of LBMA vault stocks.
“It’s as if they are inducing the ETFs to shed silver by creating a lower silver price to literally flush silver out of the ETFs,” Manly said. There is a strong correlation between the sharp fall in the silver price in mid-April with the beginning of the massive reductions in the amount of silver held by silver-backed ETFs.