Hecla Appoints and rewards Mark P. BoardThoughts on why Mr. Broad was appointed as an Independant Director.
"Mr. Broad has over 45 years of experience as a mining and geotechnical engineer and holds a PhD in Geological Engineering from the University of Minnesota."
"Mr. Board has been President of M Board Mining Consulting, LLC since 2020. Prior to that, he served as
Vice President – Innovation and Technical Services for Hecla Limited, a subsidiary of Hecla Mining Company, from June 2014 until his retirement in June 2020."
IMO Mr. Broad may of taken the year "off" as a private consultant to finalize his UBC method and to provide a period of time as he is on now the HL board as an independent.
One could also see that it is compensation to Mr Broad for designing the UBC method for one of deepest mines in the USA in a seismic prone area thereby increasing safety and productivity.
As per last years Lucky shutdown it became clear that any loss of production at Lucky has a large impact on the on the bottom line as evidenced by 2023 results.
From what I remember the Lucky mine is at just under 2000m deep and that is only about halfway into the ore body with decades? of extraction left, any loss of prodctivity has large realization of revenue.
Hecla needs to attract another person of Mr Broads caliber as an independant insert them into KHM to get some more innovation to miine the Keno Hill resource to increase ore production and safety. The old methods seem to have fallen out of economic favor and Alecxos go big or go home was a non starter.
Hecla needs Keno Hill to be profitable or at the very least stay losses for the next 10 years. Unsuccessfull attempts of restarting in the 1990s by UKHM, some others, then AXU came along just point to the fact KHM needs inovation to be an ongoing success.
The most recent attempt was AXU with AXU SH paying for the 20 years of drilling (hole pokin). The drilling at least was done to applicable standdards with the collars being located as indicated. Now what is required more extraction, higher TPD (another crusher?) and an increase in silver price.
We are two months into the year so we will see quite rapidly where this lands in 2024. :)
Note: Title:
SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF UNDERHAND CLOSED BENCH MINING
Kind Code: A1
Abstract:
The present invention relates to systems and methods of mining, including drilling a first plurality of blast holes along a length of a horizontal stope and blasting explosive within the first plurality of blast holes. The method includes recovering fragmented ore from the horizontal stope and stabilizing the horizontal stope via a first engineered roof. The method then includes drilling a second plurality of blast holes along the length of the horizontal stope and blasting explosive within the second plurality of blast holes. The method further includes recovering fragmented ore from the horizontal stope and stabilizing the horizontal stope via a second engineered roof. The horizontal stope is mined in a downward direction.
Inventors:
Board, Mark (Coeur d'Alene, ID, US)
Application Number:
17/507923
Publication Date:
04/27/2023
Assignee:
Hecla Mining Company (Coeur d'Alene, ID, US)
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240226093687/en/ As always comments on errors or omissions appreciated.