Coeur, environmental groups propose Kensington plan (November 16, 2007)

Vancouver – After being dealt a permitting blow on its Kensington gold project in southeastern Alaska earlier this year, Coeur dAlene Mines (CDM-T, CDE-N) has sat down with its former adversaries and worked out a potentially acceptable tailings site plan to present to the U.S. Forest Service.

Along with the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, the Juneau Group of the Sierra Club and Lynn Canal Conservation, Coeur will propose use of a site near Comet Beach to hold tailings from the Kensington mine.

Although the site is almost the same as the previous proposal, plans will now table a paste technology for the tailings instead of dry stacking.

The conservation groups see much less potential environmental impact with the new plan, which if approved would see Lower Slate Lake not used for any tailings storage or disposal.

Earlier this year Coeur saw an appeals court ruling effectively nullify permitting for use of the lake as a tailings facility at Kensington. Coeur along with the Department of Justice (representing the U.S. Forest Service), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the State of Alaska and the native corporation Goldbelt all challenged the ruling but were denied.

Coeur has completed all non-tailings related construction at the mine, located about 72-km north of Juneau, including the mill, surface facilities and an almost 4-km underground tunnel connecting the Kensington and Jualin properties.

The operation is anticipated to produce up to 150,000 oz. gold annually in its initial years at an estimated cash cost of about US$310 per oz. gold. The company tables a probable reserve base of 1.35 million contained oz. (4 million tonnes at 10.6 grams gold per tonne) plus further indicated and inferred resources of 3.9 million tonnes at 7 grams gold (866,000 contained oz.). The project has an estimated 10-15 year mine life.

As one the world’s largest primary silver producers, Coeur output 13.6 million oz. silver and 116,000 oz. gold in 2006. The company sees production from its Rochester mine in Nevada, Cerro Bayo in Chile, Martha in Argentina, and the Endeavour and Broken Hill mines in Australia.

On the development front, besides Kensington, Coeur is moving its San Bartolome silver project in Bolivia towards production in 2008.