"The acquisition of Northern Empire represents a unique opportunity for Coeur to bolster its development pipeline with high-quality growth projects and is strongly aligned with our strategy to deliver low-cost production and growth in top jurisdictions," Coeur president and CEO Mitchell Krebs said.

"We are excited to leverage our operational expertise in Nevada, one of the world's top mining jurisdictions, where we have been operating the Rochester openpit, heap leach mine for over 30 years."

Krebs reiterated what he said at the recent Denver Gold Forum when he described Northern Empire's Crown ground north of the near-term Sterling openpit restart target as an important "opportunity for a second, larger future operation that can create significant, long-term stockholder value".

Sterling delivers a 14,300-hectare land package about 115 miles (185km) north of Las Vegas, with a past-producing mine that is permitted and, according to Coeur, has "near-term, low-cost, low-capital production potential".

Daisy, Secret Pass and SNA, collectively known as the Crown Block, "contain significant exploration potential", the company said.

"The underexplored land package also includes multiple new, undrilled targets previously identified by Northern Empire that remain untested."