'We are actively looking for opportunities' - Hecla Mining CEO on growing the company

[Music] kco mining special coverage of the Vancouver resource investment conference is brought to you by snowline gold in a little over a year hea mining has done a Spate of transactions acquisition of attack resources alexco and a bump up in its interest in Dolly Bard silver the CEO is Phil Baker Phil welcome back to Kiko glad to be here lot of changes at heckla over a little over a year what would you highlight as being the most meaningful fil look at the acquisition of uh of alexo with Kino Hill it's a amazing or body and the expiration that we're seeing there uh is everything that we imagine plus it's uh it's really quite remarkable and I I think this is going to be an incredible mining District it already is but it's going to be even greater you know it's a 200 million ounce District um we don't know what the the limit is going to be uh now uh you you announced your uh final year in uh recently in uh January um you did have a just our production results just your production results uh you did have a um how would you say you did have some incidents that happened uh you had the fire in Alaska there was in Idaho my fault my fault for and then the forest fire in Quebec and then also the lucky Friday inent as well were these all one-offs right now for yeah yeah so let me let me talk about each of them of course in in Quebec we were subject to the same fires that everyone else was um having said that there was no fires really near specifically near our operation but the Quebec government shut down access to the Forest roads so so we weren't able to to advance the the mine but the mine's doing very well we've changed the direction of the mind we were doing both open pit and underground we we needed to simplify the operation and so we are moving just open pit and we're well on the way and we should uh we should be there by the middle of this year just just open pit um at the lucky Friday in in Idaho the the fire we had was a fire that occurred a mile underground and we don't know exactly what the cause was um but uh we have now taken care of all of that it took us uh 4 months to rehabilitate uh what we needed to rehabilitate and to build and we're back in production we should be in full production by the end of the qut heckla announces that it has an American Focus Canadian Focus also with uh the Acquisitions that you've done that I mentioned off of the top um when you uh think about silver you certainly think about uh the mines down in Latin America what do you like to underline or what is important about having this North American focus at well we we have had this North North American focus and and to the extent we can continue to grow in the US and Canada we'll certainly do that you can see that with our investment in Dolly Varden you can see that with the you know we have 20 projects in the company half of which are gold half of which are silver so to the extent we can advance those you'll see that but we recognize for us to grow quicker we need to be in either Mexico Peru Bolivia Argentina so we're actively look at opportunities in each of those jurisdictions uh the US did come in for some criticism um was it was a story that was kind of percolating I would say probably about a year ago and that was just the difficulty in terms of being able to develop a mind down there so the league of orals that ier hit or lithium Americas or what happened up with twin medals has the environment changed for mining in the US right now you know it's it's it really has changed dramatically for just development in the United States across a lot of of Industries but particularly mining um and you can see that with um legislation that was passed in May of of last year that actually set the time limits for a a record of decision whether it's an EA or an Eis there's literally a length of time that is is provided um that's the first step in in reform that's happening the Second Step will be the judicial review of these of these permits um and I think that's going to happen either this year or next year because both the Republicans and the Democrats I'm recognized with uh you know what happened with the pandemic uh on the supply chain with with economic uh military security you know with the energy transition they both want to see permitting reform so there's going to be some compromise that will happen between them uh and as a result of that I think it really will change the dynamic around the world where you're going to see permitting improve you know they're going to follow the US's lead if the US makes it easier to permit other countries particularly Canada will will follow its lead uh you mentioned critical minerals so uh certainly in your presentation uh and uh talking about the importance of silver within the energy transition however is silver more broadly recognized as being a critical mineral so I see for instance like Canada left it off of its list of critical minerals right now as well too is there a broader understanding or an appreciation of silver or is it something that uh you're lobbying for no it's something we're we're we're certainly lobbying for but but having said that um it's it's not 're silver deposits are going to advance regardless of whether it's on a critical minerals list or or not um it is uh it is clearly one of the key elements of this energy transition there the Energy Information agency just came out with their report on what they think happened in 2023 and they uh they've said basically 75% of all of the Renewables that have were was installed in 2023 were solar and that's about 350 GW which implies almost 190 million ounces of silver had to go into the construction of those solar panels um that's you know call it 15 16% of total demand for silver so that that need for silver for solar is is being recognized and it's something we're trying to to get communicated more broadly you did uh you opt your Stak in Dolly Varden this year uh what do you like about that project that you're focused a little more attention well it's it's a silver project in Canada and we really want want to be involved with any sort of silver that's in Canada or the United States uh mining sector has been tough Phil you look at the GDX uh it has H been down over the past year uh I think it's by double digits um than the other side but the broader Market teched S&P at new highs uh you know we hit a gold hit an all-time high back in December what's going on what's kind of keeping us down right now yeah short term it's about interest rates and and so it's no priz and you're seeing it across not just silver but you know all of the the Commodities um it will turn and it you know provides an opportunity for people to expand their position I'm going to ask you to choose your favor between electrification automation uh you've certainly done a lot of work in terms of your mineral processes and you've had success with that down a lucky Friday you have uh the advantages with electrification and what that's going to do in terms of hopefully reduced diesel cost at minor also that has some advantages for underground mining on the other hand you have automation which could uh increase productivity as well as also give some help around labor what do you see as being the strongest Trends between those two you know between all of the trends it's really Innovation so it's something completely different which which is what we have done at the lucky Friday mine we developed a brand new mining method we have now had it patented um and it's it is really thinking about new ways of doing the the same work and it's it's amazing the productivity that that mine has it's producing about twice as many ounces than it's ever has before so it's that's really what we're looking for whether it's Innovation through a mining method or innovation through through new technologies it it is really about Innovation you had uh in your uh PowerPoint you did a call out to a copper project recently is there anything that you want to talk about that yeah so our Rock Creek monor projects we're still advancing the the permitting on the on monor uh and that should be coming together during the course of this year Bill thank you very much for your time good to be with you my name is Michael McRae here at the Vancouver resource investment conference in Vancouver on behalf of Kito mining Kitco mining special coverage of the Vancouver resource investment conference is brought to you by snowline gold [Music]

Channel: Kitco Mining

Views: 3,758

Keywords:

Id: 7QrQ44IEfYQ

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024