Silver Wheaton’s Smallwood Talks Prices and Strategy

Mineweb’s Kip Keen spoke with Randy Smallwood, president and CEO of Silver Wheaton Corp. (TSX:SLW,NYSE:SLW), about silver prices, the company’s asset portfolio and what it is doing to ensure that it stays afloat in today’s difficult pricing environment.

Smallwood said in the interview:

I put more faith in the gold side mostly because so much silver is produced as a byproduct. Only about 25 percent of silver actually comes from silver mines. Having silver mines shut down doesn’t really have that big of an overall impact because so much of silver still gets produced as a byproduct no matter what the price of silver is. So we tend to look at gold from that perspective more than silver.

And when I see mines shutting down because they can’t work at $1,250 gold, or $1,300 gold, more expansion projects being cancelled or deferred, that tells me that we have hit a bottom. The supply side is just not there. And once you see tightening on the supply side that puts price pressure on the commodity. There are all sorts of other factors, but having that price pressure sure helps. I do think it indicates we are at a bottom.

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