The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2024 - January 15, 2025
A helicopter perched near a historical mine site on Coeur Mining's Kensington gold project in Southeast Alaska.
Coeur Mining is building high-grade silver resources and reserves in preparation for the restart of mining at Silvertip.
Mitchell Krebs
Aoife McGrath
The roughly $55 million invested into exploration during 2024 continues Coeur Mining Inc.'s ongoing commitment to growing resources through the drill bit at its mines and project in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Mitchell Krebs
"Organic growth from elevated levels of exploration investment has been a defining characteristic of Coeur over the last several years, and our commitment to exploration will continue in 2024," Coeur Mining President and CEO Mitchell Krebs penned in the company's annual report. "Over the last five years, Coeur has invested about $245 million in exploration, which stands out as one of the larger allocations to exploration in our sector and has driven significant increases in our reserves and resources."
Building reserves at its Kensington gold mine in Southeast Alaska was the number one priority of Coeur's exploration in 2024.
Going into 2024, Kensington hosted 2.12 million tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.194 oz/t (411,000 oz) gold. Based on the 2023 mill throughput at Kensington, this is enough reserves for just over three years of operations at the mine about 45 miles north of Juneau, Alaska.
In addition to the reserves, Kensington hosts 2.93 million tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 0.279 oz/t (819,000 oz) gold, plus 1.57 million tons of inferred resource averaging 0.248 oz/t (388,000 oz) gold.
Coeur's exploration at Kensington is focused on building enough gold reserves to support at least five years of mining.
Aoife McGrath
The company says drilling completed late in 2023 and into 2024 is extending high-grade gold mineralization in four zones at Kensington – Upper Kensington, Lower Kensington, Elmira Main, and Elmira South.
"Results from Kensington's multi-year exploration program continue to be very encouraging, with high grades and wide intercepts encountered in Elmira South and in Upper and Lower Kensington," Coeur Mining Vice President of Exploration Aoife McGrath. "Drilling also continues to outline new potential zones."
Highlights of late 2023 and 2024 drilling at Kensington include:
• 0.7 meters averaging 7.91 oz/t gold and 4.2 meters averaging 0.75 oz/t gold in hole K23-1935-126-X12 (Upper Kensington).
• 5.4 meters averaging 0.95 oz/t gold in hole K23-1935-126-X21 (Upper Kensington).
• One meter averaging 1.73 oz/t gold hole K23-0220-109-X02 (Lower Kensington).
• 1.2 meters averaging 1.21 oz/t gold in hole K24-0220-091-X02 (Lower Kensington).
• 2.2 meters averaging 1.1 oz/t gold and 4.4 meters averaging 0.38 oz/t gold in hole K23-0220-091-X27 (Lower Kensington).
• Three meters averaging 0.59 oz/t gold and 2.2 meters averaging 0.33 oz/t gold in hole EL24-1180-095-X01 (Elmira).
• Three meters averaging 0.73 oz/t gold and 3.1 meters averaging 0.35 oz/t gold in hole EL24-1180-095-X03 (Elmira).
"These results validate the rationale for initiating the multi-year development program in mid-2022, which was to bolster the mine's operational flexibility and set the stage for significant mine life additions," Krebs said.
Following the completion of this program later this year, Coeur expects Kensington to be well-positioned to deliver high-grade gold and free cash flow for the company.
Coeur Mining is building high-grade silver resources and reserves in preparation for the restart of mining at Silvertip.
Coeur also continues to invest heavily into resource upgrade and expansion drilling at Silvertip, a shuttered silver mine project about 180 miles northeast of Kensington in Northern British Columbia.
In mid-2023, Coeur launched a 1.5-year exploration campaign at Silvertip focused on building upon the resource and exploring this Northern B.C. property's wider potential.
Going into 2024, Silvertip hosted 7.15 million tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 8.06 oz/t (57.7 million oz) silver, 10.6% (1.52 million lb) zinc, and 5.37% (768.7 million lb) lead; plus 2.35 million tons of inferred resource averaging 6.9 oz/t (16.1 million oz) silver, 10.9% (481.8 million lb) zinc, and 4.26% (199.8million lb) lead.
"The resource has nearly tripled in just six years, and we firmly believe that we have merely scratched the surface," said McGrath. "[W]e believe that the most potent and lucrative part of the deposit is yet to be uncovered, promising an exciting phase of exploration and development that has the potential to elevate Silvertip into a world-class carbonate replacement mineralizing system,"
To uncover this potential, Coeur invested roughly $13 million into exploration, along with nearly $20 million for underground development and other expenses, at Silvertip in 2024.
Coeur is also exploring Tim, a Yukon silver property about 12 miles north of Silvertip being optioned from Silver North Resources Ltd.
Trenching completed by Coeur in 2022 confirmed high-grade carbonate replacement deposit- (CRD) style mineralization at Tim that is very similar to Silvertip. Highlights include: four meters averaging 468.1 g/t silver, 21.1% lead, and 0.3% zinc; and 8.8 meters averaging 265 g/t silver, 6.7% lead, and 0.9% zinc.
Last year, Coeur completed roughly 2,200 meters of drilling for both structurally hosted "chimney" style mineralization and stratigraphically controlled "manto" mineralization along a nearly 2,000-meter area at Tim.
Based on promising visual results from its first holes, Coeur expanded the 2024 program at Tim to include airborne geophysical surveys over the entire property.
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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