For 13 years in a row from 2003 to 2015, silver mine production has increased every single year across the world. From 2006 to 2015, global silver mine production has increased 37.8% from 643,300,000 oz to a 886,700,000 oz output of silver per year respectively.
Popular silver bullion coin programs in countries like Canada and the United States have become so large that their annual troy ounce demands have outstipped domestic annual mine supplies of silver.
The industrial revolution and technology have helped usher in more efficient silver mining techniques across the world. The following chart estimates over 1000 years of global silver production (1 tonne = 32,150 troy ounces).
Since 1950, growing global physical silver industrial and investment demand has totaled over 40 billion ounces of silver.
Just under 29 billion of those silver ounces have come from global silver mine production supplies (71.6%) over the same timeframe.
Over an estimated 11 billion ounces (355,616 tonnes) of silver supplies have come from various central bank sales, stockpiles, and silver scrap supplies (28.3%). This growing silver supply deficit equals roughly 13 years of current global silver mine production levels.
