Silver, gold prices should continue rising, Coeur d’Alene’s CEO says

The prices of silver and gold should continue rising as economic uncertainty persists, according to the chief executive of Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp (CDE.N: Quote, Profile,Research, Stock Buzz), the biggest U.S. silver miner.

“As long as we see things like the EU (Euro zone currency turmoil) and as long as we run the kind of deficits here — neither of which we see being cleaned up in the short term — those two things will continue to be positive backdrops for gold and silver,” Mitchell Krebs told Reuters in an interview.

“Demand is very healthy,” he said of silver. “The reason we are at $35 an ounce right now is because of investment demand.”

Silver was selling for $34.03 per ounce on Wednesday, while gold slipped to $1,774 per ounce.

Krebs, who recently took over as CEO of Coeur d’Alene, after being its chief financial officer, said both metals tend to be viewed as investments during economic uncertainty, although silver also has a strong industrial demand.

“Directionally, I think silver and gold both have a lot of positive fundamentals underpinning them.” he said on the sidelines of a Dahlman Rose & Co mining conference in New York.

“A lot of them are common to the two metals, but silver is a little bit different because of its industrial component.

“Over the short term, silver will be more volatile than gold. It’s a smaller market, silver tends to move more percentage-wise than gold. But I think we’ll see things continue to move upward as we end the year.”

Krebs said photographic demand for silver had dropped off dramatically in recent years as digital technology replaced film. But new demand was coming from several “clean” industrial sectors, including solar and water purification, as well as TV’s, batteries and medicine.

Cars also have a lot of silver content, such as in GPS systems and electronics, he said.

Krebs said Coeur was on track to produce 19.5 million ounces of silver and 220,000 ounces of gold this year from its three major mines in Bolivia, Mexico and Alaska.

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