ssri held a conference call to discuss the company's operations. after going over the financial results, robert quartermain said they are negotiating with a bank syndicate for a loan of up to $75 million to finance the construction of pirquitas, but it will not involve any hedging. in any event the company still has $109 million in cash, not counting the abcp assets, so they have enough to finance all activities through the end of 2008.

pirquitas will have a new reserve estimate out in the first half of next year. in addition to higher metals prices they have also found a considerable amount of zinc in an area they thought was waste.

as previously announced, the pitarrilla project recently increased by 32 million oz. and the company was also able to move 32 million oz. from inferred into the indicated category, the result of infill drilling to better define the resource. 1 of the 6 drills at Pitarrilla is doing step-out holes, the other 5 are being used for infill drilling.

as i had mentioned in an earlier post, the snowfield drilling is complete for this year, but they said didnt drill quite as much as they had hoped for due to the early onset of winter. i guess they don't call it snowfield for nothing! the estimate is due in the 1st quarter of 2008.

diablilos will have a resource update in the 1st half of 2008, and exploratory drilling is ongoing at other projects. some projects, such as shafter and sunrise lake (and others i didnt catch because he talks too fast) will be monetized, and have in fact been optioned to other companies, who are proceeding according to their own timetables, so we should know more early next year.

basically no major surprises, and pirquitas is fully permitted and on track for production late next year.