Since the global photovoltaic boom, the huge demand of solar power generation market has pushed the
Silver Mines Ltd, an Australian mining company, recently announced plans to mine its Bowdens Silver silver mine in New South Wales, Australia, which is the largest silver mine in Australia in the past 20 years. Bowdens Silver is the largest known and undeveloped silver mine in Australia, which is rich in metal resources. At present, Silver Mines Ltd has completed a lot of early exploration work. According to relevant research reports, the project will produce an average of 3.4 million ounces of silver per year, as well as about 6900 tons of zinc and 5100 tons of lead per year. The company acquired Bowdens from Kingsgate Consolidated Ltd in 2016 for A $25 million (US $18.6 million).
Anthony McLure, managing director of Silver Mines Ltd., said that at present, the explored resources of the project contain up to 163 million ounces of silver. According to the exploration results, its estimated total reserves may exceed 400 million ounces of silver.
He also said that silver plays an important role in energy transformation, because solar panels need a lot of silver.
Although silver is a by-product of many Australian mines, the proven reserves are not enough for independent mining. According to the data of The Silver Institute, Mexico is the largest silver mining country in the world, with an annual mining volume of 178 million ounces, followed by Peru's 110 million ounces. Last year, the global demand for silver was slightly less than 900 million ounces, most of which came from factories.
In view of the US $1 trillion infrastructure plan recently released to support the rapid development of the photovoltaic industry, the demand for silver has increased significantly to some extent.
