The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2023 - January 18, 2024
A helicopter perched near a historical mine site on Coeur Mining's Kensington gold project in Southeast Alaska.
Click on image for larger Silvertip exploration target map.
Over the past five years, Coeur Mining Inc. has invested nearly US$245 million into drilling and other exploration initiative aimed at building reserves and resources at its five operations and projects in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
"Through significant multiyear investments in expansions and exploration at our North American assets, we're rapidly nearing the point where we expect to see the benefits of these investments accrue to our stockholders," said Coeur Mining President and CEO Mitchell Krebs.
This includes heavy investments in the Silvertip Mine project in Northern British Columbia and Kensington gold mine in Southeast Alaska, which were the target of roughly 60% of the Chicago-based company's US$45 million exploration budget for 2023.
One of the primary areas where Coeur expects to see big returns from its exploration investments is at Silvertip, a high-grade silver mine project in the northernmost reaches of BC.
"Silvertip's emerging status as a potential tier one asset containing one of the highest-grade silver-zinc-lead deposits including a meaningful complement of critical minerals is ... a testament to Coeur's commitment to long-term organic growth through the drill bit," Krebs said.
Going into 2023, Silvertip hosted 7.04 million tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 8.52 ounces per ton (60.1 million oz) silver, 9.68% (1.37 million lb) zinc, and 5.12% (722.2 million lb) lead; plus 1.87 million tons of inferred resource averaging 7.7 oz/t (14.4 million oz) silver, 10.9% (378.1 million lb) zinc, and 4.43% (166 million lb) lead.
While the amount of silver, zinc, and lead contained within the higher-confidence measured and indicated resource categories has roughly doubled over the past year, Coeur geologists have identified several areas for further significant expansion.
The carbonate replacement silver mineralization originally outlined at Silvertip is hosted in a single manto (flat-lying) horizon located at the top of the McDame Limestone package.
Since acquiring Silvertip in 2017, Coeur has discovered several new, stacked manto horizons and mineralized chimneys throughout the McDame Limestone.
In mid-2023, Coeur launched a 1.5-year exploration campaign at Silvertip focused on building upon the resource and exploring the property's wider potential.
"We believe the resource base currently outlined at Silvertip represents a distal portion of a large mineralizing system and the detailed geological analysis and modelling completed during the first half of 2023 supports that thinking," said Coeur Mining Senior Vice President of Exploration Aoife McGrath. "The understanding gained through this process is allowing us to target exploration more concisely and continue to work to build value at this world-class project."
Krebs says 2023 drilling has "identified a suite of other key critical minerals that may further support the growing strategic value of this deposit for Canada and for Coeur as a key driver of future growth."
Coeur's 2023 drilling at Kensington, which lies about 180 miles southwest of Silvertip, demonstrated the continuation of all key mineralized structures and discovered new sub-parallel mineralized structures.
In mid-2022, Coeur launched a four-year, roughly $80 million exploration program at Kensington focused on extending the life of this high-grade underground mine beyond 2030.
Over the first six months, this program had added enough reserves to extend mining at Kensington by 1.5 years.
"Kensington's successful mine life extensions and growing zone continuity highlight the compelling expected returns on investment that can be generated over time by sustaining our commitment to targeted and cost-effective brownfields exploration," said Krebs.
This success continued into 2023.
In September, the company reported that drilling along strike at Lower Kensington has intersected some of the best grade-thickness ever encountered at the Southeast Alaska gold project. The drill program also discovered Zone 30C at Upper Kensington and linked Elmira to the main Kensington Zone.
Some of the highlights from the 2023 drilling include:
• 2.1 meters averaging 113.4 g/t gold in hole K23-0220-125-X01 (Lower).
• 1.5 meters averaging 125.3 g/t gold in hole K23-1485-132-X01 (Upper).
• 5.4 meters averaging 12.8 g/t gold in hole EL22-0990-146-X03 (Elmira).
Detailed structural and geological modeling is continuing to enhance Coeur's understanding of the controls to higher grade mineralization with drill testing targets expected to take place through 2024.
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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