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REGIONAL NEWS - U.S. & CANADA 8 E&MJ • APRIL 2018 www.e-mj.com Production Begins at Silvertip Mine Coeur Mining confirmed it has com- menced production at its high-grade sil- ver-zinc-lead Silvertip mine in British Co- lumbia, Canada, following the successful commissioning of mill operations. Ramp- up of production is now slightly ahead of schedule with mill throughput expected to steadily increase throughout the re- mainder of the year from an estimated 250 metric tons per day (mt/d) in April to 750 mt/d by year-end. "The achievement of this important milestone at Silvertip builds upon the strong momentum with which we have started 2018," said Mitch Krebs, Coeur president and CEO. "Ramp-up of milling rates and production is planned to con- tinue under temporary permit coverage through year-end." An application for a full permit amendment will be submitted during the second quarter, Krebs expected. With the company receiving approval by year-end, reaching nameplate capacity of 1,000 mt/d in early 2019, he added. "Combined with our recent exit from Bolivia and the release of Rochester's noteworthy preliminary economic assess- ment, we believe commencement of pro- duction at Silvertip further demonstrates the growing strength of Coeur's North America-focused portfolio," Krebs said. Osisko Metals Starts Work to Revive Mining at Pine Point Osisko Metals has initiated a 50,000-meter drill program at its recently acquired Pine Point properties in the southern Northwest Territories, Canada. The Pine Point dis- trict was mined by Cominco from 1964 to 1987, with about 64 million metric tons (mt) of ore produced from as many as 46 separate open pits and two underground mines on a 35-km-long trend at an overall average grade of 7% zinc and 3.1% lead. Osisko acquired the properties by ac- quiring Pine Point Mining Ltd. in a trans- action that was announced in December and closed in February. "We are initiating rapid development plans in one of Canada's once most profitable former-producing zinc mining camps," said Osisko President and CEO Jeff Hussey. "We are planning an aggres- sive exploration program to confirm, up- grade, and expand the portfolio of more than 40 historical deposits. "Shallow mineralization will allow us to rapidly convert the historical resourc- es into NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimates and incorporate them into economic studies." Three drill rigs were mobilized to the Pine Point project in early February and began drilling high-priority targets that have poor summer access. The explora- tion program also includes an airborne geophysical survey planned for the sec- ond quarter of 2018, including detailed gravity gradiometry and total field mag- netics. The favorable carbonate horizon is approximately 200 m to 300 m thick, where the majority of the historic drilling targeted zinc-lead mineralization in the upper third of the stratigraphy. Mineralization at Pine Point was char- acteristically unresponsive to historical geophysical surveys, limiting previous ex- ploration programs. Gravity gradiometry, unavailable during the time of these histor- ical surveys, is the only type of geophysical tool that will identify potential targets be- low or adjacent to the historical deposits. The detailed airborne magnetic survey will be used to map regional faults, which are commonly associated to mineraliz- ing conduits. Coincident gravity anoma- lies located along faults or especially at fault intersections would be high-priority drill targets. Drilling will confirm and delineate existing historical resources as well as investigate new exploration target areas. Confirmation drilling will focus initially on deposits located near the electrical sub- station, the former concentrator site and the Pine Point town site. Metallurgical testing, advanced baseline environmental studies, and engineering trade-off studies will be performed as part of an aggressive development program concurrent with the large exploration program. First Cobalt to Purchase US Cobalt First Cobalt Corp. has entered into an agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of US Cobalt. Once the transaction is complete, First Cobalt shareholders will own 62.5% and US Co- balt shareholders will own 37.5% of the combined company. Under the terms of the agreement, all of the US Cobalt issued and outstanding common shares will be exchanged on the basis of 1.5 First Cobalt common shares for each US Cobalt common share issued and outstanding. As part of the transac- tion, it is expected that all US Cobalt stock options outstanding will be replaced with Coeur hopes to eventually grow production at the silver-zinc-lead mine in British Columbia to 1,000 mt/d.



