Hecla Mining Company

Notable vs. Peers

• All-in sustaining cost of $6.07/AgEq oz is 82% lower than the peer producer average of $34.03/AgEq oz.
• Jurisdiction risk score of 9/10 is meaningfully safer than the peer average of 6.9/10.

Lifecycle Milestones

1. Permit granted

   Reached — date not disclosed · Hecla acquired the mineral concessions underlying San Sebastian on June 25, 1999, via its ~$25.0 million acquisition of Monarch Resources Investments Limited (40,324 hectares across 31 contiguous mining concessions in Durango, Mexico, per Hecla's own FY1999 SEC filings) -- 16 years before the 2015 redevelopment this miner's existing CONSTRUCTION_START/FIRST_PRODUCTION/CONSTRUCTION_DECISION rows are anchored to. Mineral concession titles are valid for 50 years under Mexican mining law, and Hecla's 2015 redevelopment of San Sebastian (itself a past-producing property, mined 2001-2005 under these same 1999-vintage concessions before the 2015 restart) reused this pre-existing concession rather than obtaining a new permit specific to the restart. No dated 'permit granted' event specific to the 2015 redevelopment was found in this pass's research (consistent with Task #430 batch4's own prior finding) -- same reused-pre-existing-concession shape as DVP/Woodlawn's mining lease (Task #641) and DRDGOLD/FWGR's inherited permits (this same batch, below). · Source
2. Construction decision (FID)

   Reached — date not disclosed · On 2015-09-16, Hecla announced expected San Sebastian production by year-end 2015, having secured 18-month toll-milling rights to a nearby Merrill-Crowe plant near Velardena to minimize capex (contract miner + rented mill vs. new infrastructure) -- consistent with ore mining commencing that December (see this miner's existing CONSTRUCTION_START/FIRST_PRODUCTION rows). Corroborated by an independent paraphrase of Hecla's FY2015 10-K MD&A: "Hecla made the decision to develop a mine at its San Sebastian unit in the third quarter of 2015." Exact day within September 2015 not found. CAVEAT: sec.gov 403'd on every direct fetch attempt; sourced via search-summarized SEC 8-K, corroborated across independent queries. · Source
3. Construction start

   Reached — date not disclosed · Hecla brought the past-producing San Sebastian property back into development in late 2015, ahead of mining ore commencing that December. No single dated 'construction/redevelopment start' release found; recorded reached-but-undated. · Source
4. First pour / production

   Reached — date not disclosed · San Sebastian began mining ore in December 2015 as an oxide operation (initially a planned two-year mine life, later extended via exploration success; underground mining followed from 2018). Exact day within December 2015 not confirmed from available sourcing -- recorded reached-but-undated. · Source
5. Commercial production

   Reached — date not disclosed · Genuinely reached, but no single company-wide commercial-production date exists across a multi-mine North American silver portfolio (Greens Creek in Alaska, Lucky Friday in Idaho, Keno Hill in Yukon) built over decades; Casa Berardi (Quebec) was sold in March 2026 and is no longer part of the producing portfolio. Q2 2026 results reported consolidated silver production of 4.2M oz (up 8% q/q), with Greens Creek producing 2.1Moz silver plus 14koz+ gold, Lucky Friday a record 1.5Moz silver, and Keno Hill 625koz silver (up from 500koz in Q1); free cash flow more than doubled y/y to $136M. This row was missing entirely prior to 2026-08-21 -- a genuine data gap, not a stage error; Miner.stage was already correctly PRODUCTION. · Source

Milestones are recorded only from a company's own dated disclosure. A milestone with no date shown is one we can confirm was reached but for which no date was disclosed — we don't estimate one. "Not yet reached" means exactly that, not that a date is missing. An "Expected" line likewise only ever reflects the company's own guidance (e.g. a study or permit decision targeted for a stated quarter) — most not-yet-reached milestones have none, and that absence means no such guidance has been disclosed, not that one is overdue.

A relative ranking of how closely this company matches the profile of juniors that have actually been acquired — not a probability, and not a reason to buy. Acquisitions are rare: only a few dozen significant deals happen a year across a universe of thousands of juniors, so even a high score here describes a long shot. The strongest signal the underlying research identifies — whether a major already holds a JV, earn-in, or 5–19.9% strategic stake — isn't tracked yet and is absent from this score.