these are a few miscellaneous items from the conference call that i forgot to include yesterday.

at pirquitas, the estimate of 30% completion is conservative. a lot of work has been done off site, and one shipment of equipment could bring that up to 40%. the extra four and a half years of mine life does not imply any lower grades at the end of the mine life. the grade of the new reserves is just as good as what they had before, so they won't be scraping the bottom of the barrel just to squeeze a few more years out of the mine. they will still be producing 10-11 million oz/yr in those last few years.

in addition they are not finished drilling pirquitas. the exploration is still ongoing in and adjancent to the pit. since the deposit is still open at depth there is a good chance they will expand the resource both next to and under the current pit.

the export tax the argentine government has been looking at is in the 3-5% range.

at pitarrilla the scoping study will be done in the breccia ridge zone. they plan a bulk underground operation first on the high grade main zone, and then go after the near surface mineralization later.

bowdens is less of a core asset than the company's other silver projects due to location (australia.) there has been some interest in buying the property, so this one could be monetized.