Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Phil Baker: I think it’s going to be driven more by the exploration success we have and wanting to increase throughput there. That could cause us to make a substantial investment. If we stay at 400 tonnes a day, now there’s — it’s just hard to — you don’t have a lot of space at 400 tonnes a day to make a significant capital investment. But what we’re anticipating is — I mean, the exploration we’re seeing is the potential is so great. I don’t think that will be the case. I think you will over time. But I don’t have any visibility on what that might be at this point. But it is a very exciting place and we’ve focused a lot of attention to try to get this right with start, because the only thing that can really, I think, caused a problem for us is really safety and environmental poor performance. And we’ve got to get those right, so we’re focusing a lot of time and attention on those.

Joseph Reagor: Okay. And then one last one. On Nevada, the assets have been idled for a while. But given the current gold price north of $2,300, is there any opportunity to consider restarting operations in Nevada or selling that asset to another company who might want to look at that opportunity? Is there any way to generate some value there?

Phil Baker: Yeah. So certainly, we are evaluating if there’s material in Midas that could be mined at these higher prices. And we are continuing to do the work necessary in order to get back underground at Hollister on Hatter Graben. There is nothing that I can — well, there is a huge opportunity for value creation if you could restart those operations at Midas and at Hollister. As far as selling it, I mean, that’s always a possibility. But we view it as having so much long-term exploration opportunity and so little has been done on the Eastern Robin Corridor and in Hollister that we think that’s not likely something we would do. But it’s — you know, we’re not going to be wed to an asset, particularly a gold asset.

Joseph Reagor: Okay. Thanks. I’ll turn it over.

Phil Baker: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Phil Baker for the closing remarks.

Phil Baker: The only closing remark I have is I know this is a busy day with lots of companies reporting. And I appreciate folks being on this call and certainly understand if you want to reach out to us later and either Russell or I, and we’re happy to answer questions and look forward to speaking to you. Thanks for being on the call.

Operator: Thank you. That concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.