The Alaska Miner Spring 2024 40 Ÿ Underground Ventilation Design and Modeling Ÿ Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Ÿ Mine Supply Services Ÿ Mine Design, Planning and Scheduling Services Utilizing Deswik and Ventsim 3D software Ÿ Mine Management Services for New/Existing Mines Ÿ Underground Mine Surveying Ÿ 43-101 Feasibility Studies and QP Reporting Ÿ Mine Startup Assistance with From Greenelds Exploration to FS Mine Steve Cutler - President (406) 580-7016 Josh Walton - General Manager (406) 696-9417 Larry Carr - Alaska District Manager (406) 561-9387 roughstockmining.com Serving mines worldwide since 2012 with experience and passion for the industry. Let our combination of hands on experience and education be the guide to the success of your operation. Combining the latest advances in mining software with unmatched hands on mining experience. ounces of silver, which is an order of magnitude higher gold grade than the ore currently being fed into the Kinross Alaska Mill at Fort Knox. Kinross reports that the development of Manh Choh is complete, and ore is being trucked the 250 roadmiles to Fort Knox. "In Alaska, construction of the Manh Choh project is essentially complete and is on budget and on schedule for initial high-grade production in the second half of the year," said Kinross Gold President and CEO Paul Rollinson. With the higher-grade ore from Manh Choh, the annual production at Fort Knox is expected to increase to half a million ounces over the coming five years. While not as steep a rise, Northern Star is anticipating more gold output from Pogo. Since completing an expansion of the Pogo mill to 1.3 million metric tons per year in 2022, Northern Star has been working to ramp up the annual gold production at the highgrade underground mine to 300,000 ounces. Aside from the first three months of 2023, which was impacted by a sixweek shutdown of the mill for repairs, the mill at Pogo ran near or above its nameplate capacity during 2023. The expected increases in gold production at Fort Knox and Pogo, along with steady output from the Kensington, Greens Creek, Dawson, and 145 placer mines, could elevate Alaska's gold output to the realm of one million ounces per year by 2025. While the $381.4 million of silver recovered at Alaska mines during 2023 pales in comparison to the value of zinc and gold produced in the state, the Greens Creek Mine near Juneau is the largest primary silver mine in North America and one of the biggest in the world. "Greens Creek is a premier silver mine," said Hecla Mining President and CEO Phillips Baker, Jr. "It's actually the 11th largest in the world, and I just want to congratulate the team on delivering excellent and consistent results and giving it a great future, because this is truly a world-class asset." This world-class mine about 20 miles south of Alaska's capital accounted for 9.7 million of the approximately 16.3 million ounces of silver produced in the state last year. The balance was produced as a byproduct at Red Dog. The silver-forward Greens Creek and zinc-forward Red Dog mines also produced a combined 113,000 metric tons (249 million pounds) of lead as a byproduct last year. Going into 2024, Greens Creek hosted 10.02 million tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 10.05 ounces per ton (105.2 million ounces) silver, 0.09 ounces/t (881,000 ounces) gold, 6.6 percent (1.32 billion pounds) zinc, and 2.5 percent (501.2 million pounds) lead. This is enough to keep North America's largest producing silver mine in operation for 14 years at 2023 mill throughput rates — and Hecla keeps finding more ore. "When Greens Creek started, the mine had a mine plan of seven years and now 37 years later, the mine plan VALUE, CONTINUED from PAGE 38 CONTINUED on PAGE 42
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