Coeur d’Alene Mines announced today that as part of the ongoing operational improvement program at its Cerro Bayo mine in southern Chile, the mine will be upgrading its electrical infrastructure, which will result in a temporary suspension of mining operations for approximately six weeks. Earlier this year, Coeur implemented a recovery plan at Cerro Bayo to address the higher costs and lower production rates experienced at the mine in 2007. Key components of this plan include increased underground mine development to provide more operational flexibility, reducing the size of the workforce, improving the training of the workforce using new, more efficient mining methods, an organizational restructuring, and a cost improvement program. The temporary suspension of mining operations is to allow the improvements of the contractor installed electrical distribution systems for both the surface and underground facilities to be undertaken to further improve operational reliability and performance. (more…)