Exploration

ROCHESTER

The Rochester Mine is a silver and gold surface mine located in Pershing County, Nevada, which is located approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) by road northeast of the town of Lovelock. The mine commenced operations in 1986. The Company owns 100% of the Rochester Mine by virtue of its 100% ownership of its subsidiary, Coeur Rochester, Inc. (“Coeur Rochester”). The property consists of 22 patented and 589 unpatented contiguous mining claims, including 54 mill-site claims and 53 unpatented, leased claims totaling approximately 11,000 acres.

The Company acquired the Rochester property from Asarco Incorporated in 1983 and commenced mining in 1986. No mining or processing was conducted at Rochester by the prior owner. The Company acquired initial interest in the adjacent Nevada Packard property in 1996, completed the full purchase in 1999 and commenced mining in 2003. Very limited mining and processing was conducted at Nevada Packard by the prior owner. Collectively, the Rochester and Nevada Packard properties comprise the Company’s Rochester silver and gold mining and processing operation.

Silver and gold mineralization is hosted in folded and faulted volcanic rocks of the Rochester Formation and overlying Weaver Formation. Silver and gold, consisting of silver sulfosalt minerals, argentite, argentian tetrahedrite and minor native gold, are contained in zones of multiple quartz veins and veinlets with variable but lesser amounts of pyrite.
 
In 2007, the Company commenced an exploration program to identify new silver- and gold-bearing structures on its large holdings in the district. This program defined several areas of interest and in the fourth quarter a program of nearly 3,000 feet of core drilling was completed on one of those targets. During 2007, we spent $0.3 million on exploration in the Rochester area. The Company has plans to follow-up on any favorable results from this drilling and to test other targets in 2008.