South American Silver Plummets As Bolivia Announces It Will Nationalize One Of World's Largest Silver Deposits

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/09/2012 - 14:09 Nationalization Precious Metals Reuters SAC

Anyone long silver miner South American Silver Corp today is not happy, because while the precious metal responsible for the company top and bottom line has risen significantly, it is our old nationalizing friend, Bolivian President Evo Morales (who last year caused substantial moves higher in silver with threats to nationalize various silver mines in his resource rich if everything else poor country) who has stolen the spotlight, with his latest announcement that he is on his way to nationalize SAC.TO's Malku Khota property, which the company describes as "one of the world's largest undeveloped silver, indium and gallium deposits" and which El Pais adds "is considered one of the largest undeveloped silver deposits, with reserves estimated at 230 million ounces, and at least 2,000 tons of indium, gallium and gold as well." Of course, while this is good news for the actual precious metals as it means much more supply is coming offline, it is very bad for mining and extraction companies such as South American Silver, which stand to lose one after another property to a repeat of last year's wave of nationalization. Indeed, at last check SAC.TO was down 27% today alone and plunging.