The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2024 - January 15, 2025
The Greens Creek mine in Alaska is on pace to produce more than 9.4 million oz of silver and 57,000 oz of gold this year.
Core from drilling through high-grade silver-zinc-lead mineralization at Keno Hill.
The surface facilities at Keno Hill prior to Hecla Mining's acquisition of the high-grade silver mine in the Yukon.
Catherine Boggs
Rob Krcmarov
As the largest producer of silver in the United States, Hecla Mining Company is well-positioned to be a reliable North American supplier of this precious metal critical to the transition to clean energy.
Silver's criticality to the energy transition is primarily due to its use in solar panels, which require about 450,000 ounces of the highly conductive metal for every gigawatt of installed solar capacity. As a result, the 447 gigawatts of solar installed last year required around 200 million oz of silver.
Given the rate of growth of installations, solar alone is forecast to demand 500 million oz of silver per year by 2030. This is expected to push annual silver demand to 1.6 billion oz, roughly double the capacity of all the mines around the world. While recycling currently meets about 18% of the global demand, it will be up to mining companies like Hecla to supply the other 1.3 billion oz/yr of demand forecasted by the end of the decade.
Catherine Boggs
"We're seeing a shift in how people view mining. They're beginning to realize just how critical mining, and silver in particular, is to our future," said Hecla Mining Chair Catherine Boggs.
To help meet global demand, Hecla's three primary silver mines – Greens Creek in Alaska, Keno Hill in the Yukon, and Lucky Friday in Idaho – produced more than 15 million oz of silver in 2024 and are expected to reach 20 million oz/y by 2026.
"Hecla knows silver because we've successfully mined it for more than 130 years. We know how to find silver deposits and how to mine them, safely and responsibly," Boggs added.
To find more silver, Hecla invested approximately $25 million on exploration last year, which focused primarily on growing silver reserves at Greens Creek and Keno Hill.
With an annual output of nearly 10 million oz of silver, along with significant gold, zinc, and lead byproducts, the Greens Creek Mine in Southeast Alaska is the workhorse of Hecla's producing assets.
Rob Krcmarov
"It's hard not to love Greens Creek because it's just a fabulous asset," said Hecla Mining's newly appointed President and CEO, Rob Krcmarov, a geologist who previously served as Barrick Gold's executive vice president of exploration and growth.
Going into 2024, Greens Creek hosted 10 million tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 10.1 ounces per ton (105 million oz of silver), 0.09 oz/t (881,000 oz) gold, 6.6% (658,730 tons) zinc, and 2.5% (250, 580 tons) lead.
This is enough reserves to keep the Southeast Alaska mine in operation for more than a decade at current production rates.
During 2024, Hecla invested roughly $9 million on exploration focused on expanding and upgrading resources and reserves at Greens Creek.
This included underground drilling focused on converting resources to reserves and expanding upon the known resources. This drilling continues the successful resource expansion drilling carried out in the 9a, 200 South, East, West, Gallagher, and Gallagher Fault Block zones of the high-grade underground mine at the end of 2024.
Highlights from the late 2023 and 2024 underground drilling at Greens Creek include:
• 10.3 meters averaging 74 oz/t silver, 0.03 oz/t gold, 64.7% zinc, and 2.2% lead.
• 8.2 meters averaging 72.7 oz/t silver, 0.23 oz/t gold, 9.6% zinc, and 5.2% lead.
• 7.9 meters averaging 63.4 oz/t silver, 0.64 oz/t gold, 8.3% zinc, and 4.3% lead.
• 5.8 meters averaging 51.4 oz/t silver, 0.52 oz/t gold, 9.3% zinc, and 4.9% lead.
• 8.3 meters averaging 35.2 oz/ton silver, 0.08 oz/t gold, 10% zinc, and 6.3% lead.
• 5.9 meters averaging 32 oz/t silver, 0.18 oz/t gold, 14.2% zinc, and 5% lead.
• 7.3 meters averaging 28.3 oz/ton silver, 0.01 oz/t gold, 2.6% zinc, and 1.3% lead.
• 8.5 meters averaging 19.6 oz/ton silver, 0.05 oz/t gold, 10.9% zinc, and 5.4% lead.
In addition to the underground program, during the summer, Hecla had two helicopter-supported drill rigs carrying out exploration drilling at three targets immediately adjacent to the mine – Upper Plate Zone to the west of current resources, East Ore Offset, and Gallagher West – and the Mammoth target about two miles north of the underground mine.
The surface facilities at Keno Hill prior to Hecla Mining's acquisition of the high-grade silver mine in the Yukon.
Hecla invested roughly another $8.4 million into exploration and resource definition drilling at Keno Hill, the newest mine in its portfolio.
Hecla, which gained ownership of Keno Hill through the acquisition of Alexco Resources late in 2022, began ramping up toward commercial production at the Yukon operation in 2023.
To ensure Keno Hill performs up to Hecla's safety and environmental standards, the company has taken a measured approach to ramping the Yukon mine up to full commercial capacity.
"Keno Hill has an 11-year reserve mine life and exploration potential that we anticipate will provide mining in the district for generations," said Hecla Mining Vice President of Operations Carlos Aguiar. "Our priority, then, is to develop a culture that values safety and environmental stewardship, which are the foundation of a great operation and contribute to long-term success."
By the second quarter of 2024, the mill throughput rate had reached an average of 406 tons per day, about 92% of the 440 t/d target. The collapse of the heap leach pad at Victoria Gold Corp.'s Eagle Mine about t 20 miles (31 kilometers) northwest of Keno Hill, however, slowed mill throughput in the third quarter.
The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun, whose traditional territory covers both Eagle and Keno Hill, called for a pause in mining. This, coupled with a delay in approvals for a needed dry stack tailings facility permit due to First Nations and territorial government attention on the Eagle Mine collapse, slowed Keno Hill production in the third quarter.
Despite the disruptions, Keno Hill produced 2.1 million ounces of silver over the first nine months of 2024 and had 460,000 oz of silver in ore stockpiled at the Yukon mine when milling operations resumed on Oct. 26.
"Even though Keno Hill has been a slower ramp-up than we expected, I love the exploration potential there," said Krcmarov.
Going into 2024, Keno Hill hosted 2.07 million tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 26.6 oz/t (55.1 million oz) silver, 2.5% (52,380 tons) zinc, and 2.8% (58,170 tons) lead.
Hecla's 2024 underground drilling at Keno Hill cut strong silver mineralization in three Bermingham Bear Zone Veins – Bear, Footwall, and Main. Much like Greens Creek, this drilling follows up on significant results from drilling completed at the end of 2023. Highlights from the late 2023 and 2024 drilling at Bear Zone include:
Core from drilling through high-grade silver-zinc-lead mineralization at Keno Hill.
• 12 meters averaging 54 oz/t silver, 2.5% zinc, and 4.8% lead.
• Three meters averaging 58.6 oz/t silver, 4.3% zinc, and 3.6% lead.
• 6.1 meters averaging 35.4 oz/t silver, 2% zinc, and 2.2% lead.
• 4.6 meters averaging 32.7 oz/t silver, 1.7% zinc, and 1.7% lead.
• 2.8 meters averaging 32.4 oz/t silver, 4.1% zinc, and 8.3% lead.
"With strong exploration success, we're invested in the long-term future of this operation, and in fact, the entire district, building on our foundation of stakeholder engagement and continuous improvement in safety and environmental practices," Krcmarov said of the work being carried out at Keno Hill.
The company also reported strong results from underground drilling in the Flame and Moth Mine, including one hole that cut 4.5 meters averaging 71.6 oz/t silver, 11.2% zinc, and 11.6% lead.
In addition to drilling in and around the current deposits, Hecla had three exploration targets across the wider Keno Hill property – Bermingham Deep, Elsa17-Dixie, and Silver Spoon.
"With each new exploration intercept, we continue to add to our understanding of the structural geology of our target areas and continue to demonstrate that, the mineral potential of this highly perspective district remains significant," said Hecla Mining Vice President of Exploration Kurt Allen.
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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