Hecla Mining (HL): Asegurando el suministro estratégico de plata de América del Norte

El creciente caso de inversión para la plata

Precious metals, especially gold, have historically held a special place in the monetary system, as the foundation of “softer” forms of money like non-precious metal coins, paper bills, and digital ledgers.

This role weakened with the end of dollar convertibility in 1971 and further with the emergence of credible alternatives, such as Bitcoin.

This has, however, not stopped gold from outperforming almost every other investment in the past few years, in response to the explosion of international tensions following the start of the war in Ukraine and ever-growing US debts.

Fuente: GoldPrice

A companion to gold as a “hard currency” has always been silver, with the gray metal equally used for coinage, historically.

However, concerns about inflation, geopolitics, and monetary disorder are only part of the story with silver.

What was historically a metal mostly used in jewelry and coinage is today a crucial industrial metal, notably for electronics, and the cornerstone of the green energy revolution, with solar panel production now a major driver of silver demand.

Another part of the story is that production of fresh silver from mining is struggling to keep up with demand, depleting inventory over time.

Lastly, since the end of the direct monetary role of gold and silver in the global monetary system, the silver-to-gold ratio has fluctuated, with silver becoming less precious than gold over time. If silver is getting used again for investment purposes, this could change.

Fuente: Aberdeen Investments

While not as widely discussed or valuable as gold, silver may have as much, if not more, upside potential than the yellow metal.

Demanda de plata más allá de los metales preciosos

La plata como metal industrial

While a surge in demand for investment purposes is likely the cause of silver prices rising in 2025, it is also increasingly a crucial metal for industrial purposes as the world electrifies.

As silver is the best of all chemical elements in terms of thermal and electrical conductivity, it is a crucial material for solar panels, batteries, inverters, and other electrical devices, such as fuses and relays.

Electronics, corrosion-resistant soldering, medical bandages, and disinfectants make up the rest of the demand.

So even in the case of no re-monetization of silver ever happening, the investment case for this metal can be made most solely from growing demand from electrification & digitalization, while production stagnates and already fails to match the demand.

Fuente: Visual Capitalist

It is this combination of depleting inventories, insufficient production, and rising industrial demand that has been the trigger for the speculative mania seizing silver markets in enero de 2026.

Cómo invertir en mineras de plata

Investors interested in betting on silver can look at silver mining companies. As silver miners make most of their money from the differential between production costs and spot price, sufficiently rising silver prices can double, triple, or more their operating margins.

As a result, silver miners have a “built-in leverage” included in their business model, creating both more risks and opportunities from increased volatility, without the usual trappings of leveraged bets, such as requirements for cash reserves and the danger of margin calls.

Silver deposits are unequally distributed on Earth, with the largest ore resource in Latin America, notably Mexico, Peru, and Chile. Production is also strong in China, Russia, Central Asia, Australia, and the USA.

Fuente: Mining Visuals

The issue is that as silver becomes a key industrial metal for the energy transition and other advanced technologies (including military applications), it becomes a strategic resource. So any investor in silver mining needs to worry about the risk of nationalization, windfall taxes, and exports being blocked so that the silver stays within a given nation’s borders.

And certainly, the direction of international relations seems to indicate that silver will soon be considered as strategic as oil. For example, the USA included silver in its octubre de 2025 “List of Critical Minerals”, alongside copper and uranium.

«La Ley de Energía de 2020 definió los minerales críticos como aquellas materias primas esenciales para la seguridad económica o nacional de Estados Unidos, cuya cadena de suministro es vulnerable a interrupciones y que cumplen una función esencial en la fabricación de productos cuya ausencia tendría consecuencias importantes para la seguridad económica o nacional del país.»

(Puede consultar más información sobre la inversión en plata y las posibles formas de hacerlo en nuestro informe «Invertir en plata: análisis de la demanda, los déficits y los riesgos».)

Crisis energética y producción nacional

In parallel to silver shortage and the metal’s growing strategic importance, a massive energy crisis is brewing from the consequences of the war with Iran, which is removing a lot of hydrocarbon supply from the global economy. Already, several countries in Asia are looking at Covid-era-style restrictions to reduce fuel demand.

Meanwhile, China is importing way more silver than ever before, potentially depleting the global stockpile to feed its solar panel industry, which produces the immense majority of all the world’s photovoltaic systems.

Fuente: Bloomberg

If the energy crisis intensifies because the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, it is likely that the demand for solar energy, and therefore silver, will get a massive boost to replace the missing supply of fossil fuels. But also become even more strategically sensitive.

One way to mitigate such geopolitical risks is to invest in silver producers with many operations in many countries and relatively safe jurisdictions, reducing the risk from any individual mine. This can, for example, be done through investing in Pan-America Silver (PAAS ) (follow the link for our investment report on the company).

Another one is to focus on domestic silver producers, which are not likely to suffer from a disruption of energy supply, populist national policies, or trade disruptions.

For North American investors, a good option for this strategy could be Hecla Mining (HL ), a company responsible for 37% of all silver mining in the U.S. and 29% in Canada.

Visión general de Hecla Mining

Posición estratégica de Hecla Mining

Hecla is primarily a silver miner, although it also produces gold, zinc, copper, and lead. The large majority of the company’s revenues is derived from precious metals.

As the silver price rose dramatically at the end of 2025, from just above $30/ounce in abril de 2025 to $75/ounce a year later, with a spike above $110/ounce in enero de 2026, the contribution of silver to total earnings is likely going to be proportionally even larger in 2026.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Hecla operates 4 mines in just 2 countries, with all major assets located in the USA and Canada (see below for more details). This includes two of the highest-grade large silver mines in the world.

The company is positioned as one of the lowest-cost U.S. silver producers with margins exceeding 50%, and remarkable realized margins exceeding 75% in 2025.

The company’s focus on quality is also visible in its mineral reserves in the ground, with an average reserve life 2x of its peer group.

The company is also displaying a high level of automation and overall efficiency, for example, being the lowest carbon emitter compared to peers, and has risen massively in its ESG rating since 2019.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Activos de Hecla Mining

The main mines of Hecla Mining are 2 silver mines in the USA  + one silver mine & one gold mine in Canada. The US mines are located in Alaska and Idaho, the Canadian mines in Yukon and Quebec.

While the company has four different mines, currently its primary asset is the Greens Creek, which is responsible for more than half of the company’s free cash flow. 52% of the mine revenues are derived from silver production, 27% from gold, and 16% from zinc.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Besides the primary production from fresh ore, Greens Creek also has massive “tailing”, leftover from previous mining from the past decades of activity. Technological progress and higher prices could make the residual metals left in the tailings highly valuable.

The company estimate these 10.4 million of dry stack tailings (DST) could contain as much as $6.8B in gross value from 50 Moz silver, 567,000 ounce of gold, as well as hundreds of millions of ounces in lead and zinc, 27 million ounce of copper, and other critical minerals in high-demand by the Department of Energy and the Department of War to reduce dependency on Chinese supplies: arsenic, barium, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, gallium, germanium, manganese, vanadium.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

The other US mine, Lucky Friday, is making 70% of its revenue from silver, the rest from zinc and lead.

Keno Hill in Yukon is almost exclusively producing silver (97% of revenues) and is the largest silver producer in Canada, while Casa Berardi in Quebec is a 100% gold producer.

Overall, the silver mining assets of the company display a unique mix of long reserve lifespan of 12 years to >16 years and high concentration of silver (ore grade), providing cheaper mining cost per ounce.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Venta estratégica de Casa Berardi

En enero de 2026, Hecla Mining anunció la venta de Casa Berardi a Orezone Gold Corporation por 593 millones de dólares. La operación se desglosó de la siguiente manera:

La venta es una decisión estratégica con la que Hecla Mining refuerza aún más su posición como minera centrada ante todo en la plata. El efectivo liberado se destinará a cancelar la deuda pendiente y financiar la ampliación de las minas existentes para aumentar sus reservas minerales y su producción.

“Upon closing, this transaction is immediately ROIC accretive and delivers attractive value to our shareholders while enabling us to strengthen our balance sheet while continuing to invest in growth initiatives at our core silver assets, particularly the ramp-up of Keno Hill and our Tier 1 Greens Creek operation.”

Rob Krcmarov -President and Chief Executive Officer of Hecla Mining Company.

Hecla Mining por números

Estadísticas de producción de Hecla Mining

The company employs 1,800+ employees and 500+ contractors.

By total mass, silver is by far the largest production of the company, with 17 Moz (Million ounces) produced in 2025, followed by 150,000 ounces of gold. All the other metals are simply byproducts of the primary production, as silver and gold-bearing ores tend to also be mixed with other metals like copper.

However, contrary to many gold and silver production, which is a byproduct of base industrial metal production, especially copper, Hecla Mining is first and foremost a precious metal producer.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Production is expected to stay stable in the short term in the 16 Moz of silver range for 2026, with potentially up to 20 Moz of silver by 2030.

Some of the expected growth will come from the expansion of the Keno Hill mine, and the other part from the potential restart of the “Midas” silver-gold mine in Nevada after 2030.

Finanzas de Hecla Mining

The company generated $1.4B in revenues in 2025, up 53% year-to-year. This resulted in a net income applicable to common stockholders of $321 million, or $0.49 per share.

Production costs are among the lowest in the industry, with AISC (All-In Sustaining Costs) of $11.28/ounce.

This means that all other things being equal, Hecla mining production would stay profitable even with silver prices as low as they were at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, and before it took such an important industrial role in the energy transition. And still large free cash flows >$200M / year in the hypothetical fall of silver price by more than 50%.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

One risk with mining companies is that they often have poor capital discipline. This can translate into excessive spending on exploration and acquisitions during high commodity prices, with rising debt, before a collapse in profitability and share prices, and even eventual default during the following lower commodity prices periods.

So it is very important for investors in mining stocks to assess not just the quality of current cash flows and mineral reserves, but also management’s ability to handle what is fundamentally a very cyclical industry.

Hecla has instead been cautious to use the windfall of rising silver & gold prices in 2025, with exploding free cash flow, to reduce its debt by 50%, reaching almost 0 net debt.

This has reduced its debt capitalization (Total Debt/Market Capitalization) from 18% to 2% and its gross leverage below 1x, a solid metric in what is a capital-intensive industry. The leftover of the debt is now being paid off with part of the proceeds from the sale of Casa Berardi.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Futuro de Hecla Mining

Enfoque afilado en la plata

With the sale of Casa Berardi, Hecla Mining is making a clear, conscious choice to double down on silver almost exclusively, with a stated strategy of maintaining at the very least silver as >30% of total revenues, and ideally in the 50% range of today, or more.

The company is also not looking to chase new assets or acquisitions that would decrease its high margins. Instead, it wants to maintain >30% ROIC (Return On Invested Capital) on its future silver operations.

Similarly, it is not interested in expanding into new, riskier jurisdictions and will stick to safe ones like the USA and Canada only.

Overall, the company is not opposed to some growth from exploration, but will focus on stable and highly profitable silver operations over growth.

Exploración

Debido a su apuesta por jurisdicciones seguras, Hecla ha reanudado proyectos de exploración en las inmediaciones de sus minas. Además de conocer profundamente la geología asociada, puede aprovechar infraestructuras mineras existentes que ya cuentan con permisos, están construidas y pagadas.

«Igualmente importante, la exploración cercana a las minas se ha reanudado tras más de una década de pausa, lo que refleja la mejora del balance y nuestra confianza en la larga historia de mineralización de plata profunda y de alta ley del distrito. La infraestructura existente da acceso a un amplio radio de exploración capaz de prolongar la vida de las minas y descubrir recursos adicionales.»

Besides the potential restart of Midas in Nevada, the company is also considering two other sites (Hollister & Aurora) in the same US state. Altogether, the three mines have produced 4.6 Moz of gold and 47 Moz of silver.

Fuente: Hecla Mining

Other exploration projects are all located in the USA and Canada, notably Yukon, Quebec, Nevada, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Colorado.

Rol minero de Hecla en una cartera

Some investors will want exposure to silver for a wide range of macroeconomic and geopolitical reasons: reducing exposure to China, betting on a photovoltaic boom, or a bet on inflation & remonetization of precious metals.

One way is to directly invest in silver, but this can carry risks and costs of holding the physical metal directly. The other option is to invest in silver miners.

In this case, mines in safe jurisdictions, with low to no debt, and low production costs can provide some safety for a long-term investment in a cyclical industry marked by extreme volatility in the recent period.

Hecla Mining matches all of these criteria at once, and can be a good way for North American and Western investors to get exposure to silver with the built-in leverage of miners, but with as controlled as possible risks.

Últimas noticias y desarrollos de acciones de Hecla Mining (HL)