Hecla exceeded its goal of replacing ounces mined in 2010 and defining additional reserves and resources. The company has made tremendous progress in its exploration efforts at its four large silver districts, three of which are in the U.S.; Greens Creek, Lucky Friday/Silver Valley, San Juan Silver, and San Sebastian in Durango, Mexico.
Last year’s exploration program achieved the following milestones:
- Increased silver reserves to 142 million ounces.
- Increased silver resources to 248 million ounces, representing a 17% increase over 2009.
- Greens Creek’s 200 South continued to define high-grade resources contributing 85% of the 24 million ounces of new silver resources.
- Drilling at the Lucky Friday continued to define strong veining to the east and at depth resulting in an addition of over 17 million ounces of silver resources and conversion of an additional 4 million ounces of silver reserves at the mine.
- A new resource was defined at the Noonday project in the Silver Valley.
- Discovered multiple zones of gold/silver-bearing veins and breccias with ore grades at the intersection of the Amethyst and Equity veins at the San Juan Silver project in Colorado.
In Mexico, at the San Sebastian property, new intersections of precious-metal bearing veins on the Andrea structure are in close proximity to previous mining on the Don Sergio vein but potentially represent a new vein trend with high-grade areas or shoots.
Discoveries on Hecla’s district-sized, high-quality land packages in the United States and Mexico are anticipated to generate resources which we hope to convert into reserves and then production – all leading to valuable organic growth for the company. To provide for this organic growth through exploration, we’ve increased our exploration budget by 33% from 2010 to approximately $27 million in 2011. Recently, the company's board of directors approved the increase of exploration expenditures to $28.8 million and an additional $3.4 million for exploration pre-development.
