Hecla wins suit over Gold Hunter

The Idaho Supreme Court has ruled in Hecla Mining Co.’s favor in a long-running contract dispute over a silver deposit at the Lucky Friday Mine.

Hecla operates the mine near Mullan, Idaho. In 1997, the company began producing silver from the mine’s Gold Hunter deposit. The deposit is partially owned by Independence Lead Mines, which signed a 50-year lease allowing Hecla to explore and develop its share of the Gold Hunter.

The Gold Hunter was never profitable enough to generate royalties for Independence, though the company received about $885,000 in other fees from Hecla over the years.

Four years ago, Independence sued Hecla. The suit accused Hecla of squandering the deposit by mining it during periods of low silver prices.

In a ruling released Monday, however, the court dismissed Independence’s claims. The contract gives Hecla the exclusive right to manage the deposit, and there was no guarantee that net profits would be generated from the mining operation, the ruling said.

Spokane

Potlatch reports big rise in profits

Tax benefits from converting to a real estate investment trust helped Potlatch Corp. report nearly $61.7 million in earnings during the first quarter.

The earnings, released Tuesday, amounted to $2.07 per share, and included a $51.2 million tax benefit from the company’s Jan. 1 conversion to a REIT. During the first quarter of 2005, Potlatch’s earnings were $3.8 million, or 13 cents per share.

Spokane-based Potlatch also benefited from higher revenues from sales of logs and tissue, officials said. Potlatch started cutting trees from its hybrid poplar farm in Boardman, Ore., during the first quarter. Spokane Valley

Itron earnings up to $7.1 million

Spokane Valley-based Itron, Inc. reported Tuesday earnings of $7.1 million, or 27 cents a share, for the first quarter of 2006, compared with net income of $817,000, or 4 cents a share, for the same quarter a year ago.

The company makes automated metering devices and provides services to the utility industry. Total first-quarter revenues were $155.6 million, 34 percent higher than first-quarter 2005 revenues of $116.5 million. The increased revenues were mainly due to higher shipments of automatic meter reading technology.

Itron also announced that it booked new orders worth $206 million in the first quarter, compared with orders of $117 million in the first quarter last year.

San Jose, Calif.

Seagate ups hard drive capacity

Seagate Technology LLC is beefing up the capacity of its hard disk drives to a whopping 750 gigabytes, offering consumers of digital media more storage for their computers than ever before.

The drive Seagate will introduce Wednesday, the Barracuda 7200.10, is the first computer desktop disk drive to hit the 750-gigabyte mark and represents a 50 percent increase from the previous industry maximum of 500 gigabytes.