A Silver Standard Resources (SSRI) é uma verdadeira pérola no sector da PRATA. Esta empresa é uma das poucas empresas que se podem considerar uma "pure silver stock", uma vez que a grande maioria dos seus recursos no solo são prata.
Investir na SSRI é uma alternativa interessante ao investimento directo em Prata. Como a Prata se encontra em valores históricamente baixos, todas as empresas que actualmente produzem Prata estão, na minha opinião, a fazer um mau negócio pois estão a vender o produto a um preço demasiado baixo. O ideal é não produzir e manter os recursos no solo até que um preço mais interessante económicamente permita remunerar os accionistas devidamente.
Não esquecer que a PRATA é um recurso escasso e que neste momento existe um desiquilíbrio grande entre produção e procura. Este situação já se verifica há mais de uma década e tem sido colmatada, pelo lado da oferta, através das reservas existentes acima do solo que têm vindo a diminuir de forma drástica.
Mas estes são aspectos já foram focados em outros posts (colocados aqui no Fórum) pelo que o que interessa mesmo é analizar a SSRI numa perspectiva fundamental. Para tal deixo aqui um texto - em inglês - que merece uma leitura atenta, pela informação que disponibiliza.
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Date : December 12, 2003
Silver Standard Could Be Rerated Once Production Starts, And The Metal Price Is Right.
Anyone wanting to invest in silver has to consider Canadian listed Silver Standard. Bob Quartermain, its president, was making one of his regular update trips to London this week just when the price of silver was hitting US$5.50/oz. This was interesting timing as it is just at that point that Silver Standard has the ability to move from being a huge unexpiring call on silver to becoming an actual producer. The company focuses exclusively on the acquisition and development of advanced silver dominant projects, but only now is development becoming a reality and Bob reckons that this could put a kick into the rating.
The company has a total resource of 667 million ounces of silver in the ground and roughly half of this is split between the measured and indicated, and the inferred categories. It is equivalent to 15.8 ounces of silver per share, and most of it was acquired at less than US$0.10 cents/ounce. Not content with this, the plan is to increase the resource even further to 1 billion ounces as the management is convinced that silver’s day is yet to come. Silver Standard also has more than 100 million ounces of silver-equivalent gold in the portfolio well as lead, zinc and tin and its projects are spread across North America, South America, Mexico and Chile. A look at the share chart shows just how accurately the share price reflects trends in the price of the metal.
So why does the management think the day of silver is yet to come? For a start silver demand exceeds supply. It is used in jewellery and silverware, but demand from industry is growing. Silver has multiple properties which have a growing number of uses. It is ductile; a great conductor of heat and electricity; and it is photosensitive – hence its use in photography. There has been a 25 per cent uplift from 200 to 250 million ounces of silver used in photography alone thanks in part to the increased use of disposable cameras. Many thought that digital cameras would put a cap on silver, but it is used there also in silver halide plates. Add to all this the new uses from its biocidal characteristics and a new world opens up. Silver-zinc coated stainless steel pans eliminate bacteria and silver can even be precipitated into fibres and surgical wound dressings as a permanent bactericide.
Wood preservatives, catalysts, water purifiers, washing machines electronics, currency are just a few of the other uses of this vital metal and most of it is produced from mines only partially involved in silver. In other words it is a secondary product and suffers if base metal mines run into price problems and close down as happened in copper recently. A large slice of production also comes from recycling of scrap and coins and the demand/supply ratio is kept in balance at the last resort by silver from China’s stockpile. As with so many other metals China is the enigma. The per capita consumption of silver in China is only 1.04 grammes compared with 70 grammes in the States. And this in a country where industrial production of a wide range of goods is rocketing and silver jewellery is in demand.
Silver Standard’s two most advanced projects are the 100 per cent owned Bowdens project in New South Wales and the Manantial Espejo joint venture in Argentina. The Manantial Espejo high-grade silver-gold project is a 50:50 partnership with Pan American Silver and consists of 19 separate properties covering 334.4 sq kms. Now that the price is right things are moving ahead towards developing an open pit and underground mining operation. A feasibility study is underway, and according to a pre-feasibility carried out by Kilborn the capital costs would be US$50 million and annual production should be around 3 million ounces of silver and 70,000 ounces of gold. Bob Quartermain mentions this last fact almost as a throwaway, but there are plenty of junior gold companies who would die for production of 70,000 ounces/year. The operation should have a mine life of at least five years concentrating on the Maria vein alone, but there is plenty more potential.
Bowdens is ranked among the larger undeveloped silver-dominant projects in the world and is expected to produce 4.5 million ounces of silver annually (plus lead and zinc credits) when this planned open pit mining operation commences production. It is situated near some major coal mines so infrastructure is easily accessible. Silver Standard would be more comfortable with a silver price of US$6/oz before developing this mine , but it should produce 5 million ounces of silver a year as well as significant amounts of lead and zinc. During infill drilling earlier this year there was one intersection of 150 ft grading an average of 3.6 ounces of silver/tonne including 3.3 ft of 50.2 ounces of silver per tonne 3.97% lead and 2.94% zinc. This is heady stuff so no wonder the company reckons the deposit has plenty of scope for expansion beyond the present resource of 80 million ounces of silver..
Production should certainly add a further dimension to Silver Standard, but in the meantime it offers a unique investment opportunity for those who are addicted to the silver story. And their numbers are growing in North America and in Europe.
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