Silver Demand Drivers (and vault totals)

68camaro · Friday at 10:55 AM

Unless I screwed up the calculations, the PSLV premium seems to have dropped back to the more typical 3.5% range.

68camaro · Friday at 10:56 AM

68camaro said:
Unless I screwed up the calculations, the PSLV premium seems to have dropped back to the more typical 3.5% range, rather a discount - negative premium.

pmbug · Friday at 11:40 AM

Per Sprott:

pmbug · Saturday at 6:59 AM

Feb 27 Silver Report

Vaults
PSLV

SLV

3.3M ozt

COMEX

306K ozt
COMEX run rate

~124d
Mar26 EFP spread -$0.03

Details

LBMA spot

Silver popped from the $89.50 open to $92, then $94 and settled at ~$93.64. Conflict with Iran started after the market close. Will gold and silver pop on the Sun night/Mon morning open?

COMEX 2-26

1.1M ozt (36t) deposited in Asahi [R] (824K), StoneX [R] (307K), et al

1.5M ozt (45.5t) withdrawn from CNT (485K), JPM (648K), MT&B (193K), et al

1.2M ozt (36.1t) moved from [R] to [E] in Brinks (111K), Delaware (86K), Loomis (964K)

COMEX Run Rate

Remaining Vault Stock = 360.3M ozt (88.4M [R], 271.9M [E])

Withdraw rate through last 5 days = 1.18M/day

@ 60% [R], run rate = 88.4M / 711K = ~124 (working) days (~6.25 months)

COMEX Commentary

Thursday's 1.5M ozt withdrawal was balanced by 1.1M in deposits - the first significant (>1M ozt) deposit since Jan 30. The net withdrawal brought the 5 day moving average down and extended the run rate estimate by another 19 days.

EFP spreads (EST)

Current spot price $93.81

Mar26 = -$0.03 vs -$0.16 Previous (spot @ 15:30: $93.86)
Apr26 = +$0.18 vs +$0.31
May26 = +$0.53 vs +$0.57

EFP Commentary

Mar26 EFP spread almost zero! COMEX daily withdrawals now less than 1.5M/day since Feb 18. Will COMEX withdrawals run heavy without a negative EFP spread on Mar26 contract?

SLV Share Lending

10M Shares available

Borrow fee rises from 0.36% to 0.39%

Plenty of shares available to plunder with almost no activity yesterday for the 4th day in a row now.

SLV Assets

Blackrock:

3.7M shares

JPM:

3.3M ozt (104.2t)

SLV vault stock raiding is back. Huge drop in shares and ozt on a day where spot price rose ~7%.

PSLV

No change to units
No change to ozt
Units/ozt ratio .3413

PSLV's units/ozt ratio was ~.3434 up until the end of November. It got pretty volatile for a while - bouncing up and down until mid-January. Since then it has been pretty stable lately around .3413. It's unclear to me if this is the new normal or if PSLV will acquire more silver to raise the ratio back to the historical levels.

ICYMI:

Voodoo · Saturday at 7:52 AM

Now you are starting to see how All these ETF's are actually being used by Market Makers.

pmbug · Saturday at 8:57 AM

It's getting egregious

Voodoo · Sunday at 12:40 PM

Desperate times... desperate measures.

pmbug · Sunday at 2:14 PM

1mo silver lease rate up to 2.15% now.

Even with APs (bullion banks) raiding SLV for vault stock, It appears that stress is building with the LBMA's liquid free float silver (higher lease rates generally indicate supply stress).

Either the COMEX opens the floodgates and increases the withdrawals/exports to London, or the LBMA is going to have problems very soon (sometime in March I'm guessing).

pmbug · 2026-03-02T08:31:26-0600

Mar 1 Silver Report

Vaults
SFE

91.3K ozt
Mar26 EFP spread -$0.12

Price

SFE $110.45

SGE $108.49

Retail $95.84

MCX $94.51

Spot $94.32

COMEX Mar26 $94.12

Details

LBMA Spot

Silver popped from the ~$93.60 Sun night open to $96, fell back to ~$92.50, rose back to ~$96 and has drifted down to ~$94.50. Looks like a war trade vs. Mr. Slammy battle.

Lease Rates

The 1 month lease rate has been steadily climbing for the last week which signals increasing tightness in the LBMA liquid free float vault stock.

EFP spreads (ET)

Current spot price @ 08:30: $94.32

Mar26 = -$0.12 vs -$0.03 Previous (spot @ 08:12: $94.24)
Apr26 = +$0.11 vs +$0.18 (spot @ 08:20: $94.44)
May26 = +$0.38 vs +$0.53

EFP Commentary

Mar26 EFP spread shifted more negative. Apr26 & May26 EFP spreads tightened. I would expect COMEX withdrawals to increase again given the rising lease rates.

India

MMTC-PAMP (retail) : $106.49 (less 10% taxes = $95.84)
Apr26 [SILVERM 5kg] : $101.84 (less 7.2% taxes = ~$94.51)
May26 [SILVER 30kg] : $99.69
MCX 'spot' : $98.33 (taxes?)

China

SGE $108.49

(no VAT)

SFE $110.45

SGE premium to LBMA spot = ~$13

SFE

91.3K ozt (2.8t)
Very small inflow, but it was an inflow

ICYMI:

pmbug · 2026-03-03T06:58:01-0600

Estimates for the LBMA's end of February silver vault stock (in metric tons):

LBMA official
Vault Stock = 29,109
Free Float = 7,913

PMBug "realistic"
Vault Stock = 27,511
Free Float = 6,315

I'm estimating the LBMA's *liquid* free float (6,315t total FF - 3421t illiquid FF) for silver to have an upper bound limit in the neighborhood of 2,894t. At at spot price of $100/ozt, that's ~$9.3B. That said, see the considerations mentioned at the end of this post for important context.

Details

The LBMA is due to report their end of February silver stock report on Friday, Mar 6. I fully expect them to report another overstated number. I estimate the LBMA's vault stock using known data for comparison.

Old Formula

The last few months, I used a simple formula for estimating/forecasting the LBMA's vault stock and free float:

X = A - B + (C * D) - E - F

X = LBMA free float vault stock
A = LBMA vault stock (previous month)
B = ETF vault stock (current)
C = COMEX withdrawn for current month
D = An estimated percentage of COMEX withdrawn that was shipped to London
E = Export to China (SGE/SFE) (est for current month)
F = Export to India (est for current month)

Last month, I was way off on 'F' and after closer examination of the import/export data from previous months, I've realized this formula/method needs some improvement. So, I built a spreadsheet using past months data (with thanks to @GoldFishCharts website for import/export data and @BullionaireBob for filling in two holes in my COMEX data set) and calculated some factors for estimating unknowns within a reasonable ball park range.

Factors

From October 2025 through December 2025, The UK silver imports from the USA ranged from 52% to 77% of the Withdrawn total from the COMEX for the same month. I had been overly generous in estimating this 'D' variable at 90% the last few months. The average percent for Oct-Dec was 65%.

Additionally, UK silver imports from the USA ranged from 51% to 67% of the total UK silver imports per month. The average percent over the three months was 60%.

Finally, the NET UK silver imports per month (ie. imports - exports) ranged from 70% to 87% of the total UK silver imports per month. The average percent over the three months was 80%.

New Formula

It's only three data points (Oct-Nov-Dec), but the percent ranges and averages seem consistent enough to make reasonable factors for estimating purposes. Thus, my new formula for estimating the LBMA's end of February vault stock is:

X = A - B + (((C * D) / E) * F)

X = LBMA free float vault stock
A = (27,729 Official | 26,131 Realistic*) LBMA vault stock (previous month)
B = (21,196) ETF vault stock (current)
C = (1,591.8) COMEX withdrawn for February
D = (0.65) Estimated % of COMEX Withdrawn that was exported to London
E = (0.60) Estimated total UK silver imports
F = (0.80) Estimated net UK silver imports

The new formula yields the results posted above.

Considerations

With a massive withdrawal rate at the COMEX, it would seem that the LBMA's free float has grown and is in better shape than it was on Feb 2, but there are a few considerations that might affect that conclusion:

Silver lease rates have been climbing every day for the last week. This indicates tightness with available supply in London (in the LBMA system).

ETF vault stock (particularly SLV, but also Blackrock's SSLN) appear to have been raided for vault stock by APs redeeming borrowed shares. If that is correct, the borrowers will need to return the shares and ETF vault stock at some point, so 'B' might be artificially low (much like with Jan30-Feb2).

pmbug · 2026-03-03T08:33:44-0600

Mar 2 Silver Report

Vaults
SFE

63K ozt
SGE???

PSLV

SLV

2.9M ozt

COMEX

2.8M ozt
COMEX run rate

~119d
1mo Lease Rate 1.86%

Mar26 EFP spread +$0.04

Price

SFE $97.71

SGE $96.73

Retail $86.41

MCX $85.32

COMEX Mar26 $82.90

Spot $82.86

Details

LBMA Spot

Silver dropped from ~$95 to ~$87, recovered to ~$90 at the close, and fell below $80 overnight and has climbed back to ~$82 this morning. Rollercoaster!

Lease Rates

The 1 month lease rate apparently popped to 2.15% over the weekend, but has dropped slightly to 1.86% as of this morning (still higher than Friday's 1.72%). Climbing lease rates signal increasing tightness in the LBMA liquid free float vault stock.

COMEX 2-27

607K ozt (18.9t) deposited mostly in Loomis [R] (372K) [E] (221K)

3.4M ozt (104.9t) withdrawn from CNT (1.5M), JPM (1M), Loomis (601K), et al

34K ozt (1t) moved from [E] to [R] in CNT (15K), Delaware (19K)

54K ozt (1.7t) moved from [R] to [E] in Brinks (15K), JPM (19K), StoneX (20K)