For the last 9 months, this stockpile of silver, held in the LBMA vaults in London, has been consistently falling each and every month, and has now reached an all time low (since vault holdings records began in July 2016).

These vaults comprise the precious metals storage facilities in and around London run by the bullion banks JP Morgan, HSBC and ICBC Standard Bank, as well as the London vaults of three security operators, namely Brinks, Malca-Amit and Loomis. Since the system of vaults is administered and coordinated by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), these vaults are collectively known as the 'LBMA vaults'.

Back in July this year, BullionStar highlighted this developing trend in the article titled "LBMA Silver Inventories fall to a near 6 Year Low below 1 billion ounces". 

That article covered the vault data up to the end of June 2022, where the London silver holdings had reached the dubious milestone of having dropped below the 1 billion ounce level, specifically falling to 997.4 million ozs (31,022 tonnes).

London sub-Billion Market Association (LBMA)

Since then, however, the situation has only worsened. Latest data for July and August show that the downward trend is still very much intact. During July 2022, London silver inventories fell by another 4.66% month-on-month, with the vaults seeing an outflow of 46.5 million ozs of silver (1447 tonnes). This brought total LBMA London silver holdings down to 950.9 million ozs (29,576 tonnes), and a new all time low since records began. (Note the lowest previous low had been 951.4 million ozs at the end of July 2016).