Coeur Mining Inc. Feb. 8 said it plans to begin processing ore from the Jualin deposit at Kensington towards the end of this year. To bring this higher grade deposit online while maintaining production from the Kensington side of the project, Coeur invested roughly US$36.8 million in capital expenditures at the Southeast Alaska operation in 2016, a figure that is expected to be above US$40 million this year.

The company invested roughly US$6.2 million on exploration in 2016, roughly US$3.5 million of which is included in the capital expenditures, and plans to spend another US$7 million on exploring the high-grade gold property this year.

Both years' exploration is focused primarily on expanding and upgrading the Kensington Main, Jualin and Raven deposits.

At the end of 2016, Kensington hosted 2.62 million short tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.19 ounce per ton (497,000 oz) gold.

According to a 2015 technical report, the No. 4 Vein on the Jualin side of the project contains 289,000 tons of inferred resource averaging 0.619 oz/t (179,000 oz) gold, or roughly triple the grades currently being mined at Kensington.

In 2016, the Kensington Mine produced 124,331 oz of gold from 620,209 tons of ore averaging 0.21 oz/t.

The company expects gold production at the Southeast Alaska operation to be about the same this year.

The 2015 technical report forecasts gold output to climb to 149,000 oz in 2018, the first full year of production from Jualin.

Development of high-grade Jualin deposit was about 64 percent complete at the end of 2016 and the company said the bulk of this year's capital expenditures will be allocated to finishing this development.

-SHANE LASLEY