It seems like bullion banks built a shadow inventory of silver stock outside of the COMEX system. A quick timeline recap from my notes:
August 2025 - USA announces consideration of silver for critical materials list
October 2025 - Silver refineries curtail buying less than .999 fine silver from PM dealers; LBMA runs dry of liquid free float silver vault stock
November 2025 - USA adds silver to the critical materials list
From September to November and again from December through March, the COMEX drains silver inventory massively as bullion banks ship the silver to London to support the LBMA in satisfying demand for physical silver from India, China et al. However, from February through March (and possibly April and May but we don't have the data yet), the USA exported ~500 metric tons more silver than what was being withdrawn from the COMEX.
I posit that this mysterious excess silver export stock is coming from silver bars being produced from LATAM silver dore by USA silver refiners and the bullion banks are vaulting the new bars, but not depositing it into the COMEX system. This could partially explain how COMEX vault custodians magically "adjusted" 78 metric tons of silver into existence in the COMEX vaults in April and May.
So how much shadow inventory could there be? If I'm correct that USA refineries are still producing silver bars and they just aren't being deposited into the COMEX, we should be able to see a decline in COMEX silver deposits. So let's look at the data*:
In the chart above, we can see the total silver deposits for each month along with the four year average of average monthly silver deposits from 2021-2024. I did not include 2025 in the average because the tariff scare and consequent draining of LBMA vault stock skewed the monthly totals dramatically. For the sake of this exercise, we want to see what the normal COMEX silver inflows looks like.
COMEX silver deposits fell dramatically in February 2026 versus the four year monthly average for the month of February. COMEX deposits across February and March 2026 were about one third (33%) of the four year monthly average ("normal"). April was slightly over half of "normal". It looks like COMEX silver deposits normalized in May.
The total deficit from February through April (versus "normal") was 19.7M ozt which works out to ~613 metric tons. That perfectly explains the ~500 metric tons exported in February and March that were not withdrawn from the COMEX. We have to wait a bit longer for the USA's silver export data, but it would not surprise me at all to see another ~35 metric tons of silver beyond COMEX withdrawals left the shore:
613t "shadow inventory" - 500t already exported - 78t "adjusted" into COMEX vaults = 35t
The vault flows of physical silver aren't very transparent, but there are clues available for us to make inferences.
*Special thanks to @AGgregator for database wizardry assistance in putting the COMEX deposit data together.
August 2025 - USA announces consideration of silver for critical materials list
October 2025 - Silver refineries curtail buying less than .999 fine silver from PM dealers; LBMA runs dry of liquid free float silver vault stock
November 2025 - USA adds silver to the critical materials list
From September to November and again from December through March, the COMEX drains silver inventory massively as bullion banks ship the silver to London to support the LBMA in satisfying demand for physical silver from India, China et al. However, from February through March (and possibly April and May but we don't have the data yet), the USA exported ~500 metric tons more silver than what was being withdrawn from the COMEX.
I posit that this mysterious excess silver export stock is coming from silver bars being produced from LATAM silver dore by USA silver refiners and the bullion banks are vaulting the new bars, but not depositing it into the COMEX system. This could partially explain how COMEX vault custodians magically "adjusted" 78 metric tons of silver into existence in the COMEX vaults in April and May.
So how much shadow inventory could there be? If I'm correct that USA refineries are still producing silver bars and they just aren't being deposited into the COMEX, we should be able to see a decline in COMEX silver deposits. So let's look at the data*:
In the chart above, we can see the total silver deposits for each month along with the four year average of average monthly silver deposits from 2021-2024. I did not include 2025 in the average because the tariff scare and consequent draining of LBMA vault stock skewed the monthly totals dramatically. For the sake of this exercise, we want to see what the normal COMEX silver inflows looks like.
COMEX silver deposits fell dramatically in February 2026 versus the four year monthly average for the month of February. COMEX deposits across February and March 2026 were about one third (33%) of the four year monthly average ("normal"). April was slightly over half of "normal". It looks like COMEX silver deposits normalized in May.
The total deficit from February through April (versus "normal") was 19.7M ozt which works out to ~613 metric tons. That perfectly explains the ~500 metric tons exported in February and March that were not withdrawn from the COMEX. We have to wait a bit longer for the USA's silver export data, but it would not surprise me at all to see another ~35 metric tons of silver beyond COMEX withdrawals left the shore:
613t "shadow inventory" - 500t already exported - 78t "adjusted" into COMEX vaults = 35t
The vault flows of physical silver aren't very transparent, but there are clues available for us to make inferences.
*Special thanks to @AGgregator for database wizardry assistance in putting the COMEX deposit data together.