Krebs told this week's Denver Gold Forum the former Sterling mine on Northern Empire's 143sq.km south-west Nevada land package shaped as an early source of production and cash flow to repay the cost of the acquisition - due to close next month - and/or fund the big drilling campaign Coeur expects to initiate at the Crown "block of deposits" to the north.

"Northern empire did a great job of consolidating what had been a pretty fragmented district down there in a part of Nevada that's largely been forgotten, despite the fact that there were a lot of ounces of silver and gold produced over a lot of years," Krebs said.

"What we like most about Northern Empire is you kind of get two for the price of one on this land package.

"There is a past producing mine on the property … Sterling has a very high near-surface oxide grade of 3.67gpt. That will be the first asset that we put back into production, probably about 2021.

"It won't be a lot of ounces but at that sort of grade that's going to be a great source of cash flow and we look at in one of two ways. Either we look at Sterling as the source of cash flow to pay back the cost of the acquisition … or we can think of Sterling as the source of the cash flow that's going to fund the drilling to the north, about 5km, where there is a series of deposits that collectively have currently about 700,000oz at a little over 1gpt [in resources].

"Crown block is kind of the sizzle [in the deal].

"Beyond that [series of low-grade oxide resources] on that land package there is a lot more to drill and to find.

"We think that is where the potential for a significant new, large low-cost gold operation exists for our company."

Sterling is permitted for mining, having produced as recently as 2015, and previously yielded high heap leach gold recoveries on run-of-mine ore.

Crown also has extensive heap-leachable material in three known deposits, mined 20 years ago. Northern Empire saw significant potential to extend known resources and chase newer targets. Northern Empire identified 421 historic drill holes for more than 61,500m, "mostly shallow and engineering-driven".

Mineralisation followed an east-west detachment fault structure that hosted the former Barrick Gold-operated Bullfrog mine.

"Over the next few years - probably 3-4 years - we will be drilling probably $4-5 million a year on that Crown block of deposits and hopefully then we'll have an opportunity to build a standalone operation there," Krebs said at Colorado Springs.

He told the conference Coeur was still a significant silver producer, deriving 30% of its revenue from the metal - and unfortunately still reports its production as silver-equivalent ounces - but "gold has been the fastest growing part of our business". Its five operating mines in Mexico, the US and Canada are on track to produce 36-40Moz of Ag-eq this year.

It is spending $50 million a year on exploration, mainly brownfields.

"We are not in the business of making ounces we're in the business of making money," Krebbs quipped.

"We used to be a very high-cost producer and have a lot of leverage on the balance sheet, which is a dangerous concoction. We've come a hell of a long way in the last five years … bringing us down the cost curve, bringing our leverage way down.

"Seventy-five per cent of our reserves are in the US.

"We've bought quite a few things and we've also sold quite a few things in an attempt to get a better quality collection and balance of assets. We've gotten out of places like Argentina and Bolivia, and we've added more here in the US and more in Canada.

"The near-term catalyst for the company is getting our newest mine, Silvertip [in Canada] … ramped up to where it can be a sustainable, 1,000t per day silver-lead-zinc mine. The average grade there on a silver-equivalent basis about 1,100gpt, so it's a nice high-grade deposit that's going to be a source of high-margin cash flow and production for a lot of years."

Coeur commissioned the Silvertip mill in March, and declared commercial production at the start of this month. It expects to end 2018 with the mine running at about 750tpd, with the targeted 1,000tpd achieved by the end of the first quarter next year.

"In the near term it is Silvertip, in the longer term it is the Crown and Sterling [projects], and in the medium term the biggest driver of value for us is the Rochester mine in Nevada," Krebs said.

"We're putting in some new crushing technology there that's going to allow us to recover … much more silver, much faster [via leaching].

"Silver recoveries have been low and slow. Gold comes out just fine. But about two-thirds of the revenue from Rochester is silver.

"With these high-pressure grinding roll (HPGR) crushers, which crush the rock in a way that will allow us to get that silver out much quicker, we're expecting to get 70% of the silver out in two years instead of 60% over 20 years, which has a dramatic effect on the economics, the costs and the cash flow at Rochester.

"And at this point Rochester's mine life is out to 2038, which is pretty amazing when you think the thing started up in 1986.

"That's going to be a whole new chapter for Rochester and a huge catalyst for the whole company."

Coeur's shares (NYSE: CDE) have dipped from levels around $8.45 in July to the current $5.66, giving it a market value this week of $1.06 billion.