A lot of silver needed for AI and data center buildout, says Pan American Silver CEO

? (Host) 00:00.070

driving these big moves higher well joining us now for an exclusive interview is michael steinman CEO of pan american michael welcome to the show thanks for joining us thanks

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 00:09.350

for having me

? (Host) 00:10.070

so what is driving silver to these record levels

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 00:13.350

well there's really two things to silver right it's a really important medal for the economy it's a critical metal actually right now declared in the US as a critical medal and added to the critical strategic list for medals in november so you have a lot of uptake on the

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 00:31.270

industrial side about sixty five percent of the silver is used up for that the biggest use is solar panel production but any electronic you use has silver in it silver is the best electric conductor in the world so any fast connection you need in your computer in your cell phone

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 00:48.110

AI comes to mind data centers you need a lot of silver for that so that's a big use for silver is used up and then obviously the investors come to mind here as well that buy silver for the same reason and people buy right now and so together those two uses really pushed the

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 01:03.910

silver price up to this level yeah

? (Host) 01:06.310

and in terms of that second piece of it this idea of a debasement trade and silver playing catch up to gold this year there's also been a lot of chatter about a short squeeze here and about concerns about where the inventory actually sits for the silver versus where it's being

? (Host) 01:22.470

traded against or where it needs to be how to think about that

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 01:27.350

right well you know when the discussion started about possible tariffs on silver of course silver moved from london to the US quite a bit has moved back to to london so that silver is available it just takes time to move it from one place to the other but that doesn't change and

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 01:43.670

the fact that we see really a deficit here a structural deficit on silver for the last five years we just don't see more increased production from the mining side but a huge increase in uptake as a sad industrial and investor side and with that really we see that shortage of the

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 02:02.470

of the silver amounts we have available and hence you know the fast increase in the silver price

? (Co-host) 02:07.590

michael any long term chart several years you look at of silver related to it it just looks weird i mean this this year twenty twenty five just does not seem to fit so for the folks out there who are wondering is this just some toppy excitement i mean what would you say it it's

? (Co-host) 02:26.430

connected to this AI thing as you mentioned that certainly has driven a lot of valuations and it's starting to drive some questions

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 02:34.670

yeah look silver seventy five percent of the silver is actually produced as a byproduct from copper production so it's not from primary silver miners like pan american silver but copper is already an all time high so we see copper at full production we don't have any very very

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 02:51.550

big projects coming on over the next few years on the copper side either so there's not much more silver coming in play here in the future and so hence that deficit on the mine production side will continue and you know we obviously know all where we going this will go towards

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 03:08.430

more electrification in the world than we see starting so like self-driving cars etcetera etcetera so that will require a lot of silver in the next coming years

? (Co-host) 03:17.550

well so if if there is a supply issue does doesn't that suggest that this is a trade because eventually you you one imagines there will be more silver supply on the market and those who are looking to hold this long term might need to factor that in absolutely

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 03:33.310

i mean as i said look if there's more copper mines or sink mines coming in production we will see more input coming but all the big projects i see out there are many years out there and i think over the next few years definitely we're going to see a continued deficit in the

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 03:49.630

silver market and obviously if that is in combination with investment interest we're definitely going to see high prices if that happens for sure you've

? (Host) 03:59.040

been acquisitive you made an acquisition just earlier this year will you continue to do that too try and i guess up your stakes and mines and be able to bring more of this silver and other materials that come out of the ground with it online

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 04:13.470

yes we have a combination really of a big exploration success and we added very large project in mexico that we actually found in our portfolio during exploration in the last few years but acquisition is always the kind of the second part of growth for our company it always has

Michael Steinmann (CEO) 04:29.070

been over the last thirty years and we definitely will continue to grow the company here for the future as that demand on the silver side will increase