Note 3 - Properties, Plants, Equipment and Mineral Interests, and Lease Commitments

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2016

Notes to Financial Statements

Property, Plant and Equipment Disclosure [Text Block]

Note

3:

Properties, Plants, Equipment and Mineral Interests, and Lease Commitments

Properties, Plants, Equipment and Mineral Interests

Our major components of properties, plants, equipment, and mineral interests are (in thousands):

	December 31,
	2016		2015
Mining properties, including asset retirement obligations	$	403,935	$	372,935
Development costs		347,356		291,780
Plants and equipment		814,091		738,065
Land		26,229		21,362
Mineral interests		952,382		907,791
Construction in progress		330,785		295,155
		2,874,778		2,627,088
Less accumulated depreciation, depletion and amortization		842,093		730,277
Net carrying value	$	2,032,685	$	1,896,811

During

2016,

we incurred total capital expenditures of approximately

$164.8

million. This excludes non-cash items for additions acquired under capital leases and adjustments for asset retirement obligations. The expenditures included

$41.5

million at the Lucky Friday unit,

$47.0

million at the Greens Creek unit,

$70.1

million at the Casa Berardi unit, and

$1.6

million at the San Sebastian unit.

Properties, plants, equipment, and mineral interests includes the portion of interest costs incurred on our debt capitalized as a part of the cost of constructing certain qualifying assets. For the years ended

December

 

31,

2016

and

2015,

capitalized interest totaled

$16.2

million and

$13.5

million, respectively.

Capital Leases

We periodically enter into lease agreements, primarily for equipment at our Greens Creek, Lucky Friday and Casa Berardi units, which we have determined to be capital leases.  As of

December

 

31,

2016

and

2015,

we have recorded

$42.2

million and

$39.9

million, respectively, for the gross amount of assets acquired under the capital leases and

$26.0

million and

$24.4

million, respectively, in accumulated depreciation on those assets, classified as plants and equipment in

Properties, plants, equipment and mineral interests

.  See

Note

6

for information on future obligations related to our capital leases.

Operating Leases

We enter into operating leases during the normal course of business. During the years ended

December

 

31,

2016

,

2015

and

2014,

we incurred expenses of

$4.8

million,

$3.8

million and

$3.5

million, respectively, for these leases. At

December

 

31,

2016,

future obligations under our non-cancelable operating leases were as follows (in thousands):

Year ending December 31,
2017	$	4,571
2018		2,466
2019		976
2020		993
2021		653
Thereafter		634
Total	$	10,293