MAG Silver appears to have the Midas touch: Everything it drills turns up silver—with a gold byproduct and lots of zinc, lead and copper thrown in for good measure. MAG’s first drill hole discovered the Juanicipio vein and hole #16 discovered the Valdecañas vein, both world-class deposits. In this interview with The Gold Report, MAG CEO George Paspalas discusses the company’s JV in the Fresnillo Trend, the latest off-the-chart deep discoveries and where MAG goes from here.
The Gold Report: What is your view of the silver market, and how do you think silver is going to perform under the Trump administration?
George Paspalas: The fundamentals for silver have been strong for quite a while. A lot of the new technologies, things like electronics and nanotechnology, have big silver demand.
I think both precious metals, silver and gold, will do well in the Trump era. The honeymoon’s probably coming to an end, and we’re going to start to see some real traction on both gold and silver. But fundamentally silver has a bigger component of commodity consumption than gold has. As gold gets stronger, people turn to silver as a more affordable store of wealth and risk protection. I think the silver market is strong, and in the biotech as well as the technology sectors consumption in silver will increase.
A lot of silver is produced from byproducts, particularly from zinc mines. Some of the big zinc mines that have produced a lot of silver have been shut down. The zinc price has risen substantially in the last six to eight months due to these closures.
So there’s this demand/supply dynamic going on with silver where I do believe it’s going to outperform gold. However, I think both precious metals will do well in the coming few years.
TGR: MAG Silver Corp. (MAG:TSX; …read more