Alexco wants to head back to work at Keno silver mine

Alexco Resources hopes to resume silver production at Keno Hill in early 2015.

The company closed its Bellekeno mine earlier this year because of declining silver prices.

Company president Clynton Nauman says one issue was the mill at Keno was not running at full capacity.

“Operating in the Yukon territory with a relatively small deposit results in high underlying fixed costs.”

Nauman says the discovery of the Flame and Moth deposit can solve that problem, by feeding enough ore for the mill to run at full capacity.

“That has to be 400 tons a day and the existing Bellekeno deposit was never designed to produce more than 250 tons per day,” Nauman says.

Alexco is hoping to develop the Flame and Moth deposits next year and then have it and Bellekeno being mined simultaneously by early 2015.

Nauman says before then the company has to look at options to find the most profitable way to operate.

It stills needs permits and the price of silver matters is a factor as well.