Mining projects move ahead Plans for silver and uranium mining are continuing despite plunging prices and lukewarm demand. By Steve Raabe The Denver Post Posted: 02/24/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
A handful of companies with proposed mining projects in Colorado plan to move ahead in the face of plunging commodity prices and tepid demand for minerals.
Among them are a southwestern Colorado silver mine and a Fremont County uranium project, both of which eventually could rank among the nation's largest.
Hecla Mining is exploring for silver in its recently acquired San Juan project near Creede.
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-based Hecla said its San Juan holdings could have as much as 100 million ounces of silver, worth about $1.4 billion at current prices of $14.45 an ounce if all the silver could be recovered.
Silver rose to more than $20 an ounce last spring but fell below $9 late last year before recently rebounding.
"We see tremendous opportunity to explore and develop" at San Juan, said Phillips Baker, Hecla's chief executive, in a presentation Monday to the National Western Mining Conference in Denver.
Black Range Minerals also sees potential in Colorado for uranium mining at its Tallahassee Creek project west of Cañon City, despite a recent plunge in prices.
Uranium hit a record high of $137 a pound in 2007 but now trades at about $47.
Black Range's mining claims at the project, combined with adjacent claims it is seeking to purchase, would contain about 100 million pounds of uranium, potentially making it the third-largest project in the U.S., said Mike Haynes, managing director of Black Range.
In the past three months, two other uranium mines in Colorado have temporarily shut down, one proposed project has been scrapped and another postponed because of the decline in prices.
Haynes noted that since 1954, at least five previous attempts to mine uranium near the Tallahassee Creek project have failed because of price collapses for the volatile commodity.
Gold prices remain strong, but the Cash gold mine west of Boulder recently suspended operations and laid off about 35 workers.
The mine's owner, Mount Royale Ventures, has been unable to obtain financing to continue operating, Matt Collins, general manager of the project, said at the mining conference.
Over the past two years, the Cash mine produced 1,500 ounces of gold and 10,000 ounces of silver, Collins said.
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