Gold and silver miner Coeur D’Alene (CXC) today announced a fourth quarter net income of $14.3 million, compared to $23.2 million in the same period last year.
For the year ended December 21, Coeur net income totalled $43.9 million compared to $75.4 in 2006.
“2007 represents one of the most significant years in Coeur’s history,” said Coeur Chairman and CEO Dennis E Wheeler.
“We completed the largest transaction in the silver industry’s history by acquiring Bolnisi Gold and Palmarejo Silver and Gold, which adds the new, transformational Palmarejo silver/gold project to Coeur’s portfolio,” said Mr Wheeler.
Mr Wheeler also said that Coeur’s two Australian projects acquired in 2005, Endeavour mine and Broken Hill mine, are both performing well now and have generated a significant return from the investment.
Coeur said that it now possesses the largest and highest-quality reserve and resource base in the company’s history.
“Our focus in 2008 will be to maximise the value of these ounces by achieving full-scale production at San Batolome in Bolivia, by applying the company’s project development expertise to advance Palmarejo towards production in early 2009 and by building on the current momentum in Alaska to move Kensington closer to production”.
The company’s current priority is to get its Cerro Bayo mine in southern Chile back on-track by reducing the mine’s operating costs and increasing its gold and silver production.
Cerro Bayo had a disappointing performance for 2007, producing 1.7 million ounces of silver and 37, 500 ounces of gold. Nevertheless Coeur has implemented a recovery plan including improvement of productivity, restructuring and cost improvement and is therefore expecting improved performance in 2008 of 2.5 million ounces of silver and 40, 000 ounces of gold.
Coeur said it is expecting to produce approximately 16 million ounces of silver in 2008, which represents nearly a 40% increase over 2007 production levels. The company also expects to produce approximately 68,000 ounces of gold during 2008.”
Shares in Coeur ended the day flat at $5.15.
