Hecla nearly doubles exploration budget: reserve replacement lens for mine planners
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Hecla Mining is nearly doubling 2026 spend on exploration and pre-development to US$55 million, targeting Nevada projects and producing assets Greens Creek (Alaska), Keno Hill (Yukon) and Lucky Friday (Idaho) to at least offset annual reserve depletion. The company reports 231 million oz silver and 2 million oz gold in reserves after 2025 output of 17 million oz silver, including a record 5.3 million oz from Lucky Friday and roughly half of total silver from Greens Creek. Drilling is focused on converting Inferred resources, extending reserve envelopes and testing high-grade targets at the historic Midas mine, which has produced 27 million oz silver and 2.2 million oz gold.
Technical Brief
- 2025 exploration spend was US$25.2 million, plus US$2.5 million on pre-development drilling and studies.
- Refined technical standards have been rolled into reserve modelling, aimed at improving estimate robustness and comparability.
- Greens Creek and Keno Hill drilling is concentrated at resource boundaries to tighten geometry and extend ore envelopes.
- Infill and step-out drilling there targets conversion of Inferred blocks into reserves for near-term mine planning.
- Lucky Friday, with over 80 years’ production history, is being drilled for further expansion potential at depth and laterally.
- At Midas in Nevada, high-grade discovery targets are being tested around a historic producer of 27 Moz Ag and 2.2 Moz Au.
- Additional Nevada projects are being advanced as near-term production candidates with perceived district-scale discovery upside.
- Market reaction to the exploration plan was immediate, with Hecla’s share price jumping up to 9% on the day.
Our Take
With 231 Moz silver reserves against planned 2025 output of 17 Moz, Hecla’s reserve life signals long-duration optionality at assets like Greens Creek, Keno Hill and Lucky Friday, which can justify front‑loaded exploration in a way many single‑asset silver producers in our database cannot.
The sharp 9% intraday move in Hecla Mining’s New York‑listed shares on an exploration and pre‑development update contrasts with the more policy‑driven sentiment seen in recent US ‘Project Vault’ coverage, suggesting equity markets are currently rewarding organic reserve growth in precious metals more than top‑down critical‑minerals initiatives.
Historic production figures at Midas (27 Moz silver and 2.2 Moz gold) combined with a US$55‑million exploration and pre‑development push indicate Hecla is effectively treating Nevada as a brownfields camp, a pattern our coverage shows has been more successful for underground silver‑gold miners than greenfield frontier plays in Canada’s Yukon over the past few years.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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