Equipment from Europe, Asia and South America was unloaded Wednesday at the New Jersey Mining Company's mill site near Kellogg.

The mill, which treats ore from the Crescent mine and the Golden Chest mine, will be expanded to handle around 400 tons per day - it currently does 100 tons daily.

The $2.5 million project should be complete by the end of this year, but it won't run at full capacity until the middle of next year, said New Jersey Mining President Fred Brackebusch. Until then, it'll run at one-third to one-half capacity.

United Silver, which owns the Crescent, is in a joint venture with New Jersey Mining. The current mill is New Jersey Mining's contribution, and the expansion project is being paid for by United Silver as its contribution. Mine Fabrication and Machine, a United Silver-owned company, is doing much of the work for the project.

The expansion includes rebuilding the crushing plant and the addition of a ball mill.

Ore will be fed into the ball mill, which is a cascading mill similar to a rock polisher - but much bigger. Steel balls and water will grind the ore to a fine sand to separate the silver from other rock minerals.

Brackebusch said New Jersey Mining is conducting a drilling program at the Golden Chest mine and won't produce until reserves are built up.