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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Alaska mine produces 2.4M of Hecla's 3.3M oz of Q1 silver North of 60 Mining News – April 15, 2022
Hecla attributes the increased silver and gold production at Greens Creek to higher grade ore from the underground mine.
Hecla Mining's Casa Berardi Mine in Quebec, Canada produced 30,240 ounces of gold during the first quarter.
Hecla Mining Company April 12 reported that its Greens Creek Mine produced 2.4 million ounces of silver and 10,299 oz of gold during the first three months of 2022.
The Southeast Alaska operation's first-quarter silver output is down nearly 8% from the 2.6 million oz produced during the same period last year but up by about 4% from the previous quarter. Likewise, first-quarter gold production is about 22% lower than the first three months of 2021 but more than 11% higher than the previous quarter.
"Greens Creek's production increased due to slightly higher grades," said Hecla Mining President and CEO Phillips Baker, Jr.
The quarterly increase at Greens Creek helped to bolster Hecla's companywide silver and gold production to 3.3 million and 41,642 oz, respectively.
The balance of Hecla's first-quarter silver came from Lucky Friday, an Idaho mine that produced 888,000 oz during the first quarter, which is about 7% lower than the previous three-month period. The company attributes this drop to fewer tons mined and lower silver grades stemming from delays in the arrival of equipment, which affected mine sequencing. The delayed equipment is expected to arrive at the Idaho mine this quarter.
"Lucky Friday's production has now had six quarters with production above 830 thousand ounces, positioning production to grow to over a million ounces a quarter for the remainder of the year," Baker said.
Hecla's remaining 30,240 oz of first-quarter gold was produced at Casa Berardi in Quebec, Hecla's only operating mine in Canada. The first-quarter gold production at Casa Berardi is down about 19% from the 37,266 oz produced during the final three months of 2021. Hecla says it anticipated this decrease due to the lower grades near the surface at 160 Pit, which began supplying ore to the mill at the end of 2021.
In addition to precious metals, Hecla's Greens Creek and Lucky Friday mines also produce significant quantities of byproduct zinc, which has been deemed critical to the United States and reached a near-historic high of US$2.04/lb on April 13.
"Hecla is on track to grow silver production this year and for each of the next two years while also being the United States' third largest zinc producer," said Baker. "Zinc, like silver, is a critical mineral in the energy transition and is approaching its all-time high price set 15 years ago."
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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