The U.S. silver supply will likely be in jeopardy in the future when the highly inflated paper markets finally crack. This is not a matter of if, but WHEN. If we consider the top two precious metals and copper, silver has the highest net import reliance as a percentage of domestic consumption.

According to the data put out by the USGS – U.S. Geological Survey, and the GFMS team at Thomson Reuters, the United States silver net import reliance as a percentage of total consumption, was 72%, versus 36% for copper and a negative 48% for gold:

The USGS reported that of the apparent 8,100 metric tons (260 million oz) of total silver consumption in 2015, the United States relied on 6,156 metric tons (198 million oz) of foreign silver imports to meet total demand.As we can see this was nearly the opposite percentage for copper. The United States only relied upon 36% of copper imports to meet its total copper consumption in 2015.

Now, for gold… it’s a much different story. The USGS did not provide any net import reliance percentages of total consumption for gold due to the following footnote in their 2016 Gold Commodity Summary:

The United States has been a net exporter; however, large unreported investor stock changes preclude calculation of a meaningful net import reliance.

Taking this into consideration, I came up with my estimate of U.S. gold net import reliance as a percentage of consumption. While it is difficult to estimate “Investor gold flows” in and out of the United States, I focused on total demand versus total supply.I used the data from GFMS 2016 Gold Survey and the World Gold Council 2015 Full Year Demand Trends Report.

Yes, I realize these figures may be corrupted, manipulated or inaccurate, but it is the best we can go by to get a BALL PARK figure.

NOTE:  Different official reporting sources post figures in metric tons and ounces.Here is the conversion for metric tons (1 metric ton = 32,150 troy ounces).

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