North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Coeur Mining Inc. Jan. 5 announced that its Kensington Mine in Southeast Alaska produced 33,688 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter, a 27 percent increase over the previous three months and the best quarterly gold production for 2016.

The strong finish to 2016 is due to high production, 163,410 tons milled, and higher grades, which averaged 0.22 oz/t.

For full year 2016, the underground mine produced 124,331 oz of gold, a slight decrease from the 126,266 oz recovered in 2015.

Coeur is expecting similar production at Kensington in 2017, calling for gold production to be between 120,000 and 125,000 oz this year.

Coeur's five operations in the United States, Mexico and Bolivia produced 14.8 million oz of silver and 358,170 oz of gold. This comes to 36.3 million silver-equivalent oz, using a 60-1 silver-gold ratio to calculate silver equivalency, which is in-line with the company's guidance of 34.4 million to 37 million silver-equivalent ounces.

For 2017, Coeur expects to produce 16.4 million to 18 million oz of silver and 362,000 to 387,000 oz of gold, or 38.1 million to 41.2 million silver-equivalent oz.

-SHANE LASLEY