Shuttered North Idaho Silver Mines To Reopen Production Will Resume At Coeur, Galena Mines

Two idled North Idaho silver mines will roar back into production in coming months, the mines’ operator announced Friday, shocking the world silver market and pleasantly surprising the long-depressed Silver Valley.

The number of working mines in Idaho’s Silver Valley will double when the Coeur and Galena mines, owned by Silver Valley Resources Corp., join the Sunshine Mining & Refining Co.’s Sunshine Mine and Hecla Mining Co.’s Lucky Friday mine in operation.

One hundred miners will be hired by May 1 to work in the Coeur silver mine, idled since April 1991. Silver Valley Resources will spend the next 18 months reopening the larger Galena mine, closed since July 1992.

“I think that’s just great,” beamed Kathy Sheppard of Silver Valley Appliance and Mercantile in Kellogg. “That’s just going to mean good things for our business right here.”

Silver Valley Resources, a consortium between New York-based Asarco and Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp., thinks the silver market is strong enough to reopen the Coeur.

For at least a day, that assessment returned the Silver Valley to the forefront of the silver market, which it dominated until the market collapsed in the early 1980s.

Thousands of layoffs changed the face of Shoshone County.

“Most folks around here can’t afford to pay for things outright, but they put a little money down and pay off the rest as they can,” Sheppard said of the customers at the appliance store. “This will really be a blessing to us.”

The reopenings come as a surprise to some, as both Asarco and Coeur d’Alene Mines officials had previously pinned the reopenings on having silver remain well above $6 an ounce. Silver closed Friday down six cents at $5.65 an ounce. Some analysts attributed the decline to the announcement about the North Idaho mines, which raised the prospect of increased production.

Local analysts generally were more upbeat, seeing the prospect of additional mines opening as a positive development.

Spokane-based Royal Silver Mines Inc. is seeking financing to reopen the smaller Crescent Silver Mine near Kellogg, said John Ryan of Pennaluna & Co. securities firm in Coeur d’Alene.

But Ryan said it could take months or years for world silver production to catch up to demand.

When the mines closed, silver sold for $3.70 an ounce. But demand for silver has outstripped mining production five-consecutive years, creating annual shortages of 160 million ounces or more.

“If nothing else it’s symbolic that we have confidence in the silver market,” Tony Ebersole, spokesman for Coeur d’Alene Mines, said of the reopenings.

The 100 miners expected to be brought on in coming months will likely come from outside the Silver Valley, said Gary Beck, manager of the Kellogg Job Service. Many of the qualified miners have left the area or retrained for new careers. The mine reopenings could allow some Silver Valley miners to return home, though.

Though he expects Silver Valley Resources to use his agency to help find workers, Beck did not hear from any of the mines’ officials Friday.

“I doubt that we have that many people who could go to work there,” Beck said. “I’ve got a lot of friends who are tending bar or working at service stations who’d like a chance at those jobs.”

At their prime, the two mines employed about 410 people, according to Asarco. The companies will use the list of former workers to fill the 100 spots over the next three months, according to the contract worked out with the United Steelworkers of America.

The three-year contract won’t pay as well as contracts at the nearby Sunshine Mine and Lucky Friday mine in Mullan. Paul Glavin, sub-district director of the Steelworkers union local here, said that if the two mines prosper, the union would step in to renegotiate contracts more similar to those at competing mines.

“We were able to help them be more competitive, while allowing people to increase their skills and pay,” Glavin said from his Spokane Valley office. “This is a big deal for the guy who’s been out of work for a long time.”

, DataTimes