Silver — doré from a high-grade underground mine, refined to 999 fine

What we produce

Silver leaves the Tazoult mine as doré: bars of roughly 92% silver and 5–6% base and precious metal impurities, poured on site from Merrill–Crowe precipitate and stamped with a bar number that ties back to a production campaign. Bars move under armed escort to Casablanca and by insured air freight to an LBMA Good Delivery silver refinery in Europe, where they are refined to 999 fine and either delivered as one-thousand-ounce Good Delivery bars or credited to a customer’s unallocated account.

We do not operate a refinery and we have no plans to build one. Silver refining is a scale business with thin margins, and an operation producing four million ounces a year would be a sub-scale entrant in it. The value in this asset is in the ore body and in running the mine well, not in the last five per cent of processing.

The mercury that occurs naturally in Tazoult ore is captured in the retort, converted to mercury sulphide and stored. Under the Minamata Convention mercury recovered from primary silver production may not be sold. Some silver producers have historically treated recovered mercury as a by-product revenue line. We do not, we will not, and the tonnage recovered each year is disclosed in the sustainability report.

Product specifications

Payable terms under our refining contract are 99.0% of contained silver and 98.5% of contained gold, with refining and treatment charges deducted per gross tonne of doré delivered.

Production record

The 2026 range covers the period from 20 February 2026, when Quintel assumed operatorship, and reflects eleven days of production lost to a ground support standstill and a deliberate slowing of stope turnover while grade control is rebuilt.

Where it goes and why

Silver is unusual among precious metals in that most of it is consumed rather than hoarded. Somewhere around half of annual demand is industrial: photovoltaic cell metallisation paste is the largest and fastest-growing single use, followed by electrical contacts, brazing alloys, electronics and, at a smaller scale, medical and antimicrobial applications. Jewellery, silverware and investment bars account for the rest.

That industrial share is why silver fits this group. The investment case is closer to our copper business than to our gold business: it rests on electrification and on solar deployment rates, not on real interest rates and central bank buying. It also means silver demand carries a real thrifting risk that gold does not — the industry has cut silver loading per photovoltaic cell substantially over the past decade and will keep doing so — and we would rather state that plainly than pretend the demand curve only points one way.

On the supply side, roughly 70% of the world’s silver is produced as a by-product of lead, zinc, copper and gold mining. By-product supply does not respond to the silver price; it responds to the price of the metal that pays for the mine. That is what makes a primary silver mine with an eleven-year reserve life a scarce thing, and it is a large part of why we bought this one.

Commercial terms

Silver is sold through the Dubai marketing office. Because the metal is refined under contract, most sales are of refined metal rather than doré.

• Pricing: LBMA Silver Price over an agreed quotational period, plus or minus a location and form differential.
• Delivery: Good Delivery bars ex-vault in Zurich or London, or unallocated credit transferred to a customer account. Doré sales ex-works Morocco are possible but uncommon.
• Payment: irrevocable letter of credit at sight, or open account for counterparties with an established credit history.
• Assay: refinery outturn governs. Doré is sampled and assayed at pour, and the mine and refinery assays are reconciled campaign by campaign.
• Traceability: every bar traces to a doré pour number, a production campaign and a mining block. Tazoult silver is single-origin; we do not blend it with purchased metal because we do not buy any.
• Hedging: none. Silver output is sold unhedged, the same policy the group applies to gold.