Mines dig sales, cash
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 14 years, 4 months AGO
COEUR d'ALENE - Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation on Monday announced record quarterly metal sales of $231.1 million and operating cash flow of $115.8 million.
The company's strong second quarter results were led by its Palmarejo silver and gold mine in Mexico, which produced a record 2.4 million ounces of silver and 33,389 ounces of gold.
"Overall, we feel comfortable that full-year 2011 silver production will reach 19.5 million to 20.5 million ounces and gold production will be 240,000 to 250,000 ounces," said Mitchell J. Krebs, Coeur's newly appointed president and chief executive officer.
Coeur enjoyed adjusted earnings of $58 million, or 65 cents per share, versus an adjusted loss of ($8.9) million, or (10 cents) per share during last year's second quarter.
Its silver production of 4.8 million ounces was up 16 percent compared to the prior quarter and 15 percent over last year's second quarter.
It also saw record gold production of 60,656 ounces, up 14 percent over prior quarter and 162 percent compared to last year's second quarter.
The rest of the year is promising, Krebs said.
Coeur is anticipating full-year production of about 20 million ounces of silver and about 250,000 ounces of gold, along with full-year net metal sales of about $1 billion and operating cash flow in excess of $500 million.
It plans to increase second half exploration expenditures by 67 percent to about $14 million to accelerate drilling activities at Palmarejo, Rochester and Joaquin.
Krebs said Coeur will continue to focus on "operational consistency" at its new, large mines, and was pursuing new internal and external growth initiatives that will create value for shareholders.
Its Rochester silver and gold mine in Nevada is one such opportunity.
"We have now resumed active mining and expect to generate additional silver and gold ounces in the fourth quarter from a newly constructed leach pad. Rochester offers opportunity for further high-return growth beyond this initial expansion, which we are actively pursuing," Krebs said.