Reserves and production
Silver metallurgy

Global resources inventoried in 1997 are close to 770,000 tonnes of silver metal. Much of this silver is associated with base metals (copper, lead and zinc), but in recent discoveries it is mostly associated with gold in mixed gold-silver deposits. Economic reserves in 2001 stood at over 282,000 tonnes of silver metal, fairly evenly distributed across all continents (table 1 ). They correspond to around 16 years' consumption.