Two Inland Northwest mining companies expect to decide between now and the end of the year whether to construct three proposed mines on two continents that would cost a combined $600 million.


Coeur dAlene Mines Corp.s board of directors is expected to make production decisions this quarter on both Coeurs proposed $91.5 million Kensington gold mine in Alaska and its proposed $105 million San Bartolome silver mine in Bolivia, company spokesman Tony Ebersole says.


Weve got two major projects that are really going to change the company, Ebersole says.


Meanwhile, Spokane-based Gold Reserve Corp.s board should decide by year-end whether to build the companys proposed Brisas gold mine in Venezuela, which now is expected to cost about $400 million, says Doug Belanger, Gold Reserves president.


Unless some impediment jumps up that we dont see right now, we plan on construction commencing at mid-year, Belanger says.


Gold Reserve announced recently that it already has begun marketing the concentrates that it plans to produce at Brisas, and Belanger says the company is negotiating for port facilities to store the concentrates and load them onto ships at Puerto Ordaz, northwest of the mine.


We fully expect to build this, Belanger says of the Brisas project, although he cautions, A production decision by the board has not been made.


The two companies pending production decisions on the three projects will come on the heels of Hecla Mining Co.s announcement earlier this year that it would build the $30 million Mina Isidora mining operation in eastern Venezuelas El Callao gold district.


Hecla said that operation would have been more expensive to build, but the Coeur dAlene-based company already owns a processing mill 70 miles to the south at its La Camorra mine, where it will process ore from Mina Isidora. To extract the mineralized material, Hecla will sink an underground road into the ore body at Mina Isidora. In such a mine, compared with other types of mining operations, typically there are much higher grades and lower capital costs, and they provide much higher returns, Hecla spokeswoman Vicki Veltkamp says.


Given all of the activity, things are looking good for Inland Northwest mining companies, Belanger says.


Were all coming along. No question, he says. The next year or two is going to be extremely interesting. This is the time to make hay, when the sun is shining.


Says Veltkamp, Its a function of greater interest in mining. Metals prices are up. The investors are interested in investing in mining.


In addition to building the Mina Isidora, Hecla is putting in an $8 million underground tunnel, called a drift, 1,000 feet below another drift thats currently being used to mine the Gold Hunter deposit in North Idahos Silver Valley. The new drift will extend a mile from the shaft of the companys bellwether Lucky Friday Mine, in Mullan, Idaho, Veltkamp says.


At average silver prices of $5.25 per troy ouncethe white metals price at the time Hecla decided to build the driftthe investment Hecla is making was expected to yield a 40 percent return, but silver prices were $7.26 last Friday, and interest in silver has shot up along with its price, Veltkamp says. In September, a silver-industry meeting, called the Silver Summit, attracted close to 500 people in Coeur dAlene, just one year after it attracted only about 100 people, she says.


Also, Veltkamp says, Hecla is spending more on exploration this year than I ever remember us spending. The company is funding that investmentsome $15 millionentirely by itself with internally generated cash and proceeds from a stock issue two years ago, she says. Its doing exploration work in Alaska, in Nevada, in Mexico, and in Venezuela, where the land and the geology have been fantastic, Veltkamp says. The company has called the Mina Isidora project just the first of many new projects we expect to be able to develop there.


The flurry of big projects reflects both the rich history of Inland Northwest mining companies and the improved metals prices. Gold closed at $420 per troy ounce on the spot metals market one day last week, and copper closed at $1.42 a pound, both well above the prices that they had commanded for some time.


If youre financing when prices are up, the market is robust and wants to raise the money and is ready to raise the money, Gold Reserves Belanger says.


Gold Reserve, in its studies months ago of the viability of the Brisas deposit, had assumed gold prices of $350 an ounce and copper prices of 90 cents a pound, Belanger says. At the higher metals prices that are prevailing now, Gold Reserve is hoping to cut its estimated cash costs of mining gold at Brisas to less than $200 an ounce, perhaps to between $180 and $190 an ounce, in a key feasibility study its completing, he says. Those prices assume that copper would still be selling for 90 cents a pound, and for now, its expected to remain high, Belanger says.


Such welcome price swings can be especially helpful when a mining company is contemplating a big project, he says.


You can see payback periods drop to a year and a half from four or five years; thats what banks like, he says. In my 30 years in the business, one thing Ive learned is that it doesnt matter when you start a mineit matters when you finance it.


Last Friday, Gold Reserve announced that it had retained a consulting firm to give it financial advice, both on the financing of the Brisas project and on its own corporate development.


The Brisas project is bigwith anticipated annual production of 475,000 ounces of gold and 65 million ounces of copper a year for 16 to 18 years. At todays prices, such output would produce almost $265 million in annual revenue.


Gold Reserve estimated the cost of the mine at $355 million months ago when it believed the open-pit operation would sustain a gold plant that could process 50,000 metric tons of ore a day. Now, additional drilling results have caused it to revise that figure upward to 70,000 metric tons a day, which Belanger says isnt among the worlds top 10 operations, but nonetheless still is huge. He says Gold Reserve hasnt updated its estimated cost of building a mine at Brisas yet, but is revising the $355 million figure and expects the new cost estimate likely will exceed $400 million.


Coeur dAlene Mines projects are sizable, too. The Kensington deposit, located 45 miles north of Juneau, is expected to produce 100,000 ounces of gold a year for at least 10 yearsa welcome production increase for a company that produced 119,000 ounces of gold last year and expects to produce 142,000 ounces this year.


The San Bartolome silver deposit, located near the historic Bolivian silver center of Potosi, is expected to produce 6 million ounces of silver a year initially, then ramp up to 8 million ounces after it gets to full production, helping Coeur reach output levels of more than 20 million ounces a year, Ebersole says.


All three projects, Kensington, San Bartolome, and Brisas, are near other property that Coeur dAlene Mines and Gold Reserve, respectively, plan to explore to try to add to their storehouses.


Gold Reserve also has a deposit in the El Callao district in Venezuela, where Hecla is building its Mina Isidora mine. Belanger describes the district as being elephant country, where theres a lot of mines.


You hunt where the elephants roam, Belanger says.